Code: The Adventure Continues
by RejolWivurr
Summary: The computer is shut down and everything is over, or is it. Xana returns with a vendetta. How will our heroes rise to the challenge? Upgrades, a revolution, and a battle that brings the world to it's knees. Ulrich has a secret of his own. What happens when the others find out? Will he and Yumi finally get together, or will their relationship end? Follow them on their Journey.
1. Chapter 1 Xana Returns With A Vengence

**Hey! How's it going. Ok this is a disclamer. I do not own the tv show Code Lyoko. But I really like the show and thought I would make this fanfic of it. Anyway, to the story!**

They all stared at the supercomputer as it shut down. They couldn't believe it was finally over. Xana was gone. They stood in silence for several minutes until Odd spoke up.

"What are we gonna do in our free time now that Xana's out of the picture?" Odd asked as the lights dimed on to nothing on the gold and black supercomputer with a faint buzz. They all looked around the simple square room with white walls. And the supercomputer in the center.

"Don't worry Odd. There are plenty of other ways for you to get into trouble without Xana's help." said Ulrich

"Ya, but things are going to get pretty boring around her." Odd said as he, Ulrich, and Yumi all walked into the elevator.

"You guys go on ahead. I want to talk to Alieta," said Jeremy.

"Ok, see you to in a minute." the three said as the elevator door closed. What is it Jeremy? Is something wrong?" Alieta asked.

"No, nothing's wrong. I just wanted to talk to you." he said.

"Ok. What?" she said.

"Alieta. With everything thats been going on we haven't been able to spend much time togerther." he said

"But Jeremy. We've-" she said.

"I know, we've spent a lot of time with eachother fighting Xana and everything. But we haven't spent much time alone together." he said

"Where are you going with this Jeremy?" she asked.

"Listen Alieta, I realy like you a lot. I mean really like you. And I want to be with you. Not just as Friends. As a couple." Jeremy said blushing fiercly.

With that a huge smile spread out over her face as she said, "I really like you too Jeremy." And with that she leaned forward and kissed Jeremy on the cheek. Jeremy had uncontrolably stiffend up and stayed frozen like that until he felt Alieta pulling him into the elevator. Shaking himself awake, he followed her into the elevator and pressed the button that would take them to the surface.

"Oh, come on," Odd said in a whining voice. "They've been down there for like two minutes."

"Pipe down, Odd. You can wait." Ulrich said.

"But you don't understand. If they don't get up her soon, I'll die of exhaustion!" said Odd.

"REALLY. THEN I GUESS YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO die of exhaustion. Ulrich said

"Don't worry Odd, they'll be up soon." he said. As if on cue the elevator doors opened to reveal Jeremy and Alieta.

"Finally. Now we can all go home." Odd said.

"We were only down there for a few minutes Odd." Jeremy said.

"I know. It took forever." he said.

"Come on guys. Let's go before Odd die's of exhaustion." Ulrich said. They all walked up to the ropes they used to get down into the basement where the elevator was. They all climbed up the ropes and walked out of the factory onto the bridge where there was a sewer panel. They opened the panel and climbed down the ladder onto the walkway next to the sewer water. Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi grabed their scatebourds and rode down the sewer tunnel. Jeremy and Alieta grabed their scooters and followed them.

Back at the academy were they went to school.

"It's getting late, so I'd better get home to my parents." Yumi said.

"Ok. See you tomarow Yumi." They said.

"We should all get some rest. I think we deserve it after taking down Xana." said Jeremy.

"Thats the understatement of the year." Ulrich said. "We haven't got a good nights sleep in a long time."

"For once, We can relax." Odd said.

"Well, good night." Jeremy, Alieta, and Odd said. Ulrich watched as Jeremy and Alieta walked away holding hands. Then he looked back at the distant figure of Yumi as she walked home. And he wished that there was something like that between him and Yumi.

Flashback

"Ulrich things have to change," Yumi said. "One day we're together, the next day we're not. One day your jealous, the next day I'm Jealous. We can be friends, but thats it. Just good friends."

End Flashback

Ulrich stood there until Yumi had all but disapeared from sight. Then without a word he turned around, and walked up to him and Odds room. Where Odd was already asleep

Four months later

Alieta, Jeremy, Ulrich, and Odd were at the lunch table eating when Yumi sat down and said, "Hey guys. Anything new."

"Not really. Except for the fact that Odd started computer dating again." Ulrich said.

"Again Odd, I thought you had stoped for good when you found out you were dating Sissi." Yumi said.

"Don't even mention that. Sissi might be miss popular, but she's a real pain." Odd said.

"You can say that again. Sissi's so annoying." Ulrich said.

"Why is she annoying Ulrich? Because she's always messing with us, or because she's always wanting to go out with you?" Alieta said with a smile.

"Both." he said.

"Hey guy's, it's that time again." Jeremy said.

"Already. Wow, time sure fly's." Yumi said.

"Ya, Einstein. Didn't we do this like a month ago." Odd said.

"Odd, we're supose to do this every month." Ulrich said.

"Oh ya." Odd said.

"That's right guys. It's been exactly four months since we defeated Xana." Jeremy said.

"Another anniversary celebration night at the factory." Odd said. "Another one night where we turn on the supercomputer and have fun on Lyoko." Ulrich said.

"Another time where we try and devirtualize eachother for fun." Yumi said.

"And this time I'll win." Odd said

"Good luck Odd," Alieta said, "Ulrich and Yumi win almost everytime."

"Ya. But they always catch us by suprise. This time we'll be ready." Odd said.

"Ya. You two better be careful tonight. We've got a trick up our sleve." Alieta said.

A Few Hours Later

"Ok, guys. You ready. The supercomputers on and Lyoko is open for busness." Jeremy said.

"Ya know, Jeremy. You can always join us on Lyoko." Ulrich said.

"No way. The last time I tried to go to Lyoko I got stuck in virtual space somewhere between Lyoko and the real world. You really thing I want to try that again." Jeremy said.

"Well you do have a point." Ulrich said.

"Besides, someone has to run the supercomputer while you guys are on Lyoko." Jeremy said.

"True." Ulrich said.

"Ulrich, Yumi, you guys are first.

Ulrich and Yumi each steped into one of the three scanners. Which are basically metal tubes that scan their human DNA and virtualize it into Lyoko.

"Start it up Jeremy." Ulrich said.

"We're ready." said Yumi

"Here goes." Jeremy said. "Transfer Ulrich, Transfer Yumi... Scaner Ulrich, Scaner Yumi... Virtualization."

"Odd, Alieta, your next." Jeremy said.

"We're ready Jeremy." Alieta said

"Transfer Odd, Transfer Alieta... Scaner Odd, Scaner Alieta... Virtualization."

"Ok guys. Your split up into your teams. And I droped you on oposite ends of the forest sector. I'll send you your vehicles and then the game begins.

Ulrich's POV

Ulrich's virtual body apeared on the virtual world of Lyoko in the forest sector. As usual Ulrich was in his Lyoko cloths, which was basacaly a yellow body suit with black on the shoulders, and a black stip runing down the front and back center on the top half of the suit and the arms as well. The lower half of the suit was yellow. With the hips and outer part of the suit black. And of couse Ulrich had his two swords forming an X on his back.

Yumi's suit was a little different. The top half of her body suit was like a black one piece bathing suit with black sleeve's. The lower half of her suit was gray all the way down to her ankles where she has black shoe's. And of course she had her two razor sharp Japanese style fans that she uses like boomerangs. Then Jeremy brought up their vehacles.

Ulrich's vehacle was basically a motorcycle except with one wheel in the center, like a unicycle but better. And Yumi's vehicle was kind of like a scooter that fly's.

Ulrich climbed onto his motorbike and started racing through the forest sector heading for Odd and Alieta. Yumi did the same. The forest sector was actualy just a bunch of floating paths and intersections with grass and huge tree's. With something called the digital sea beneath it and all of Lyoko.

When Ulrich and Yumi saw Odd and Alieta on Odds vehacle which was basacaly a flying scatebourd. They went into action. Ulrich slowed down to were he was still moving at a normal speed, but he didn't make any noise. Ulrich watched Yumi speed away to the right while he took a path that would put him behind Odd and Alieta.

While Yumi went to the right pretending not to notice Odd and Alieta closing in on her. Ulrich followed them for a while longer and then decided that the time for hiding was over. He suddenly reved his engine up to full speed, and ramped up the side of a large rock passing right by Odd and Alieta. And while he passed them through the air he drew one of his swords and sliced right through Odd's hoverbourd. Causing it to diseaper and Odd to go crashing to the ground. But Alieta hit the star on her wrist which caused her wings to come out. But Yumi had thought of that too. As soon as Ulrich attacked she turned around and just as Alieta made her wings come out, Yumi threw one of her fans and it went straight through them and caused Alieta's wings to disapear and Alieta to fall to the ground. Yumi and Ulrich climbed off their vehacles and stood infront of Odd and Alieta. Yumi pulled out her two fans and Ulrich drew his two swords.

Odds body suit was all purple with cat paws, and claws. Spiky blond hair with cat ears sticking out. And a purple cat tail, and Odd also had his laser arrows that he shot out of his hands.

Alieta's body suit was all pink, except she had a clear skirt that went over her pink pants. And Alieta's power's were her energy fields, which were balls of energy that she shot from her hands.

They stood there a moment trying to find the fastest way to take the others down. As usual Ulrich was the first to do so.

"Super Sprint." shouted Ulrich as he excellerated to five times his normal speed. He ran straight for Odd. Odd went down on one knee and shot three of his ten laser arrows. The first one missed. The second Ulrich dove underneath. And the third Ulrich deflected right back at Odd. Odd jumped up over the laser arrow and used his claws to stick to a tree while he fired four more laser arrows. Ulrich dodged the first two arrows. And then deflected the other two back at Odd. Odd managed too jump out of the way of both his laser arrows. When Odd jumped down from the tree he fired three more arrows. All of which Ulrich dodged. Odd waited until he knew he couldn't miss Ulrich. Which was when Ulrich was almost within striking distance. Odd smirked thinking he'd won. He went to fire an arrow nothing hapened. And Odd realized he was out of arrows. Just as Odd turned to dive out of the way Ulrich closed the distance between them. And Ulrich sliced Odd right through the middle with his sword, causing Odd to lose all of his life points and be devirtualized and sent back to the real world.

"Odd. I think you just lost your bet." said Ulrich to himself.

All the while Yumi had been fighting Alieta, but hadn't yet devirtualized her. Yumi threw both her fans at Alieta. Alieta jumped through the air over the fans. But unforturnatly for her she didn't realize Ulrich was sneaking up behind her. While she was in the air Ulrich jumped up after her and sliced at her with his sword. But she dodged his attack and landed on the ground. But just as she hit the ground a laser came out of nowhere and devirtualized her.

"Nice work, Yumi." Ulrich said.

"That wasn't me. I thought it was you." Yumi said.

"But then who-" Ulrich said as he looked past Yumi and saw something he thought was gone forever.

"Uh. Jeremy we got a problem." Ulrich said.

"What is it Ulrich." Jeremy said.

"Were all of Xana's monsters destroyed with him." Ulrich asked.

"Yeah. Why?" Jeremy asked.

"Because Yumi and me are face to face with one of Xana's Terachalas." Ulrich said as he started deflecting lasers the Terachala was shooting at them.

"That's imposible. Those things were destroyed along with Xana," Jeremy said, "Wait a second. Whats going on?"

"What is it Jeremy." said Alieta, who was standing next to Odd behind Jeremy.

"I've been locked out of the supercomputer. I've got no cotrol. I was trying to bring Ulrich and Yumi back, but now I can't do anything." Jeremy said starting to panic. And then a symbol appeared on the computers screen. The symbol was a dot with a circle around it. And then a second circle with three lines at the bottom and one at the top.

"Hey Jeremy, Did you find out what locked you out?" Ulrich asked.

"It's Xana. He's back." Jeremy said.

Ulrich kept deflecting the lasers while Yumi tried her best to take out the Terachala. But Ulrich wasn't able to deflect them all. One laser got through and hit Yumi. The laser sent her flying back where she rolled off the edge of the platform.

"Yumi!" shouted Ulrich as he deflected a laser back at the Terachala. Destroying it.

"Ulrich, Yumi's hanging onto the edge of the platform. You have to pull her up. If she falls into the digital sea she'll be gone forever." said Jeremy. Ulrich ran over to the edge and looked over to see Yumi hanging from the edge. He reached down to pull her up but she was just out of reach.

"I'm still locked out of the supercomputer. I can't rematerealize her. I'll try to hack into it, but we may not have enough time." said Jeremy.

That was when Yumi lost her grip and started to fall. Ulrich lunged out to grab her hand, and his fingers closed on empty air.

"Ulrich!" cried Yumi.

"Yumi!" cried Ulrich.

"Ulrich is there any way you can devirtualize her. You still have one sword left. Mabye you could-" said Jeremy

"I'd never hit her at this range." Ulrich said. "She's to far away already."

"Then it's hopless. Yumi will disapear." Jeremy said.

"There's only one way to save her. I've made my desision. I'll do it." Ulrich said.

"Ulrich, what are you talking about." Jeremy asked. "What way?"

"Odd, in our room. Under my pellow, there's a note. Give it to Yumi." said Ulrich. And then he jumped off the edge after Yumi.

"Are you insane." shouted Jeremy. "You just jumped of the edge. You'll disapear too." But Ulrich didn't hear him. He was lost in his own world.

Flashback

"You really like her, don't you ulrich." said Odd.

"More than like her. I love her." Ulrich said.

"I guess you thought that if we had a fight then I would think about you all the time. But you don't have to do that to get my attention." said Yumi as she kissed Ulrich on the cheek.

Ulrich had just pulled Yumi up from the edge. Their eyes met. And their lips started moving closer and closer.

"This has to change Ulrich. One day we're together, the next day we're not. One day your jealous, the next day I'm jealous. We can be friends, but that it. Just good friends." Yumi said.

"More than like her. I love her.

I love her."

End Flashback

Ulrich was close to her now. Only twenty feet away and getting closer every second. Just as he reached her he pulled out his last sword and slashed her across the stomach. Causing her to devirtualize. And then he fell into the digital sea.

Even as he felt his mind being pulled apart by the digital sea the only thing that he was thinking about was that Yumi was safe.

Alieta, Jeremy, and Odd all ran down into the scaner room just as the door to Yumi's virtualizer opened. What they found inside was a devastated Yumi huddled on the ground tier's streaming down her cheeks.

"Ulrich. No." Yumi said quietly to herself. "He's gone. He's gone, and now I'll never get to tell him that I- that I-. She never finished that sentence. She didn't have to. They all knew Yumi and Ulrich loved eachother. Even if both of them were to afraid to admit it. Odd and Alieta helped Yumi up and tried to make her stop crying.

"Don't cry Yumi." Alieta said. "It's not over. After all you fell into the digital sea before."

"Ya. We found a way to bring you back." said Jeremy. "And we'll find a way to bring Ulrich back."

After a few seconds. The quiet sobs ended. Yumi's shoulder's stoped shaking. When she looked up at the others. There were no more tier's. No more sadness. In it's place was rage and determination.

"This was Xana's plan all along. To have one of us gone. Well, Xana got his revenge. Now Xana had better prepare himself for mine." she said.


	2. Chapter 2: Guess Who? Part 1

**Hey guys. Did you like the last chapter? I did. Not much to say right now, so onto the story!**

Yumi's point of view

_"It had been two months since that day. Xana hadn't attacked since. I guess that's lucky for us. We've all been a bit of a wreck recently without Ulrich. When Jeremy's not it class he's always on his computer. Alieta's always with him. They've been working nonstop on trying to get Ulrich back. If I could, I'd be helping too, but I don't know how to use a computer like they do. I can't help bring Ulrich back. I can only hope that they can bring him back. Without Ulrich being here. With the chance I'll never see him again. It's made me think a lot about the things I said to Ulrich in the past. All the pointless fights we've had. All the days I spent pretending that we were just friends. But who was I kidding. They all knew I liked Ulrich. And they all knew he liked me. I remember the day after Ulrich fell into the sea. Odd came by my house. Said before Ulrich jumped after me he told Odd about a note. He said Ulrich told him to give it to me. I memorized every word of that note. _

_Dear Yumi,_

_You told me we could be friends and that's it. Well I don't want to be just your friend Yumi. I want to be together with you. Do you remember that day on Lyoko. When you nearly fell into the digital sea. But I pulled you up before you did. Our eyes met. And we started to move closer and closer together. We almost kissed. If it weren't for the return to the past Jeremy used to put everything back to normal we would have. Look Yumi I know you said that you just wanted to be friends, but I don't believe you. I don't believe that you just want to be friends Yumi. Maybe you do. But I don't think so. And I don't think you do either. Well, until you tell me that you feel the same way, or that you don't. Until you give me one of those answer's, I'll just say something I've wanted to say for a long time._

_I love you. _

_Sincerely,_

_Ulrich_

And as Yumi sat there thinking about the note Ulrich wrote, she became angry at herself for not admitting to Ulrich that she loved him as well. At that very moment she would have given anything for just one more minute with him, so that she could finally tell him that she loved him just as much as he loved her.

Then she saw Odd, Jeremy, and Alieta running over to her.

"What going on?" Yumi asked.

"Xana's launched an attack." said Alieta. "We're heading over to the factory now."

"Let's go then." Yumi said as she followed them through the woods to the sewer hatch they used to reach the factory.

When they got to the factory Jeremy and the others went into the elevator and went down to the supercomputer. Jeremy got out of the elevator and went to the supercomputer.

"You guys head down to the scanner room. I'll send you into Lyoko." Jeremy said.

The three of them went down into the scanner room.

"We're ready Jeremy." Alieta said.

"Hey, what the-?" Jeremy said.

"Jeremy what's wrong?" she asked.

"Xana deactivated the tower." Jeremy said, "But why?"

"That's wierd. Xana doesn't usually give up like that." Yumi said.

"Hang on what's that?" Jeremy said.

"Jeremy whats going on." Alieta said.

"Xana deactivated the tower because something's happening on Lyoko. Something Xana doesn't want to happen. Xana deactivated the tower so that he could stop whatever's happening. And if Xana wants it to stop then that's a pretty good reason to make sure it does happen." Jeremy said.

"Should you send us to Lyoko." Odd asked.

"No, Xana isn't sending monsters to it. He's sending a virus into the supercomputer to stop whatever's happening. If I can hack into the virus, I can get rid of it so that Xana can't stop all this." said Jeremy.

"It'll take me a couple of minutes to stop the virus. Until then, head down to the scaner room. May need to virtualize you after all."

Odd, Alieta, and Yumi all went down to the scaner room and stood there waiting.

A few minutes later

"I've got it. The virus is gone." Jeremy said.

"So what exactly was Xana trying to stop." Odd asked.

"I'm about to find out." said Jeremy.

"Ok. Xana was trying to stop some kind of program from running, but I have no idea what the program was for-. What the-. I don't believe it." Jeremy said with a gasp!

"Jeremy what's wrong?" Alieta asked. Just as she said that one of the scaners started opening. Smoke came out of it, but when it cleared they all saw something that made them all stop moving and just stand there. What they saw was a person sitting down in the scanner looking up at them. It was Ulrich.

"Ulrich." said Yumi as he got up and moved out of the scanner.

"Hey guys. What's going on." said Ulrich. Then he was knocked over as they all jumped at him and all started hugging him.

"How did you survive the digital sea." asked Yumi.

"What do you mean survive the digital sea?" Ulrich asked with a confused look on his face.

"Don't you remember jumping into the digital sea? Alieta said.

"No I-. Wait, I- I do remember. Yumi fell over the edge. I jumped after her and de-virtualized her before she hit the sea. The last thing I remember is feeling my mind being pulled apart and spread across the internet." Ulrich said.

"But how did you survive it?" Jeremy asked as he came down the ladder.

"I honestly have no idea." Ulrich said.

"Well at least you did somehow survive." Odd said.

"Ya." Alieta said. "We may not know how you survived, but the important thing is that you did.

They all started to head up to the surface and where walking across the bridge when Yumi grabed Ulrich's arm and said, "Well catch up with you guys later."

"Something wrong Yumi?" Ulrich asked.

"I just need to talk to you about the note you gave me." she said.

"What note. I didn't give you any note." said Ulrich

"You told Odd to give it to me before you jumped off the edge after me." she said.

"No I didn't. I didn't have a note for you at all. I'm sorry Yumi but I don't know what your talking about." he said.

_"Something's not right." _Yumi thought_. "He should have known that."_

"Well anyway, I just wanted to ask if you had any feelings toward me at all." she said. Actually she wasn't wondering that at all. But she thought something was wrong, and she had to be sure before she jumped to conclusions.

"Yumi we've been over this. I told you we can only be just good friends, that's it." he said.

"Ok. Just wondering." she said.

"Let's catch up with the others." said Ulrich.

"You go ahead. I just remembered that I left something back at the factory." she said.

"Ok, see you at school." he said.

She waited until he was out of sight and said to herself, "That is not Ulrich." She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Jeremy's number.

"Hey Yumi." Jeremy said, "What is it.

"We've got a problem." she said.

The next day

The gang were in Jeremy's room talking about what Yumi had discovered about their so called Ulrich.

"What should we do? Xana makes a clone of Ulrich and then sends him to earth? I mean whats his plan?" Odd asked.

"We need to get rid of the clone. Now if Xana made a clone of Ulrich then there should be tower activated somewhere on Lyoko." replied Jeremy, "Aelita and I will head to the factory and run a few scans. In the mean time. See if you guys can keep an eye on Ulrich's clone. No telling what Xana has planed."

"Ok. You head to the factory and see what you can find. We'll keep the clone busy." said Yumi.

The group then left the room and split up. Yumi and Odd went to find Ulrich's clone. They found him outside in the courtyard.

"Hey guys. Where have you been." the clone asked.

"Odd needed some help with math." Yumi said.

"Oh." the clone said. "So where are Aelita and Jeremy?"

"They went to the factory. Got some big surprise program for us." Odd said.

"Maby we shoud go see what it is." the clone said.

"It's not ready yet. Jeremy said he'd call when it was done.

Just as she said that Yumi's phone started to ring. She pulled it out and answered it.

"Hey Jeremy," she said, "Did you finish the program that you and Aelita were working on?

"Ya but I wasn't able to locate the tower. All I know is that it's some where in the desert region." Jeremy said.

"Ok. We'll be there soon." she said as she hung up. "Xana's activted a tower in the desert region."

"Ok lets go." the clone said just before he was kicked in the stomach by Yumi. The clone fell to its knee's and looked up at Yumi.

"Sorry Xana, but your not going anywhere." Yumi said as Odd started to run to the factory. With Yumi staying behind to deal with the clone it would just be him and Aelita. They would need help thought Odd as he started to dial a number on his phone.

Yumi's point of view

The clone stood up and it's eye's changed into the Xana symbol as it realized it had been caught.

"Clever Yumi." it said in a strange deep voice. "I wonder how you ever figured out that your precious Ulrich is still dead."

Yumi said nothing. She just stood there watching the clone.

"Very well. If you don't want to talk then I supose I could just kill you instead." the clone said as it launched itself at Yumi.

Odd's POV

Odd dialed Williams number on his phone as he was running to the factory.

"Hello." said William.

"William, its Odd. Xana attacked and we need your help to find the tower." Odd said.

"On my way." William said as he hung up.

Odd made it to the factory and took the elevator down to he scanner room with Aelita.

"Jeremy, I called William. He's on his way." Odd said.

"Ok. Get in the scanner.

Two scanners opened and the two stepped in.

"Scanner Odd, Scanner Aelita. Transfer Odd, Transfer Aelita. Virtualization. said Jeremy while hitting buttons on the supercomputer.

"Now to find the tower. said Jeremy.

Yumi's POV

The clone launched itself through the air at Yumi aiming a kick to her chest. She side stepped the clone and kicked it in the back of the head as it landed. That caused the clone to fall face first into the ground. But it just stood back up and laughed at her.

"I don't think you quite understand Yumi. I don't just have Ulrich's looks. I have his skills. His abilities. Except mine are multiplied ten fold compared too Ulrich's. Ulrich is the only person to even have a chance at beating me and he's dead. And I don't just have Ulrich's abilities. I have his Lyoko abilities as well." he said as he used super sprint to dash up to Yumi and kick her to the ground.

The clone walk over to where Yumi started to get up off the ground. And stopped five feet from her. When Yumi got to her feet she started to back away from the clone. And when he saw this he just laughed and said, "Don't think you can escape me." And then he said, "Triplicate." Two more of Ulrich's clones appeared and surrounded Yumi in a triangle. And as she stood there, the three clones started to press buttons on their watches.

_"Strange." _Yumi thought. "_Ulrich never wore a watch. Why would the clone's have something that Ulrich didn't?"_

And then she stood in shock as the clone's press a button on their watches and a holographic form of Ulrich's Lyoko outfit complete with two swords appeared on the clone's.

"Like it." One clone said. "We thought we might show you what we can really do."

All three clones drew their swords at the same time. And Yumi did what any sensible person would do when facing three people with swords intent on killing her. She ran. She turned and ran into the forest as the three clone's chased after her.

William's POV

He had just gotten Odd's call and was dashing over to the factory. He ran through the city towards the factory when he heard a sound behind him. He stopped and turned around to see several small green creatures running towards him. (Think about the purple six legged creatures on the movie Avatar who attack Jake at night and you'll have a pretty good idea what they look like.) He turned back and started running for his life.

Odd's POV

Odd and Aelita had been roaming around the desert sector hoping to find the activated tower.

"Anything yet, Jeremy." Aelita asked as her and Odd turned around on the hover board.

"Nothing. I can't evan find a trace of Xana's tower. It's almost as if-." he said.

"It's almost as if what?" Odd asked.

"It's almost as if there isn't a tower at all." he said as he started hitting random button's on the supercomputer.

"Is that possible." Aelita asked.

"Mabye." he said. " If Xana didn't use a tower to bring the clone to our world, then he would have to be using a supercomputer like we do to bring you guys to and from Lyoko."

"And if we could find the supercomputer and destroy it-" Aelita said.

"Then the clone would be destroyed along with it." Jeremy finished. "I'm starting a search now."

"I found it." he said a few minutes later.

"Time to take down a supercomputer." Odd said.

"I just hope we'll be in time." said Aelita.


	3. Chapter 3: Guess Who? Part 2

William's POV

He was running through the town away from the creatures that were chasing him. But he couldn't get away, they just kept getting closer and closer. He ran around a block and ran into a dark alley. It was a dead end. He turned to run back out before he was trapped and found the small creatures blocking his way. He was already trapped.

Jeremy's POV

"Are you guy's almost there?" asked Jeremy.

"We're in the Skids docking room, but didn't you say that you couldn't reprogram the skid once it was destroyed?" asked Aelita recalling how the skid fell into the digital sea when the colossus knocked it over.

"I can't reprogram the whole skid, but I can handle two nav-skids." he said as he virtualized the two one man vehicles.

"Ok, we're going in." Odd said. They both stood on the floating circles that would teleport them into the nav-skids. With Aelita in the middle.

"Get going you guy's. We don't have that much time." Jeremy said as the two plunged into the digital sea.

A few minutes later.

"We're almost there Jeremy, but I don't see a replica. How will we get to the supercomputer." asked Aelita.

"You'll have to attach the nav-skids to one of the information bars scattered through the digital sea. If it's connected to the supercomputer then I can beam you to the real world." he answered.

"Plug in the nav-skids and I'll-." Jeremy started.

"Jeremy. Are you there?" asked Aelita. "Jeremy."

But Jeremy was focused on the security camera that he was watching. A person wearing a green jacket had just stepped out of the scanner. And was now leaving the factory. Once outside the figure saw a motorcycle gang talking on the side of the road. And before they stop him the man hopped on one of the motorcycles and took off down the road.

"Jeremy, is something thing wrong?" Aelita asked. Jeremy shook himself out of his trance. "This was more important." he thought. "I'm here. Nothing's wrong."

Aelita and Odd both connected to the correct information bar. And Jeremy beamed then into the real world.

Yumi's POV

Yumi was running for her life through the woods. She looked back and saw one of the clones were using super sprint to dash in front of her. As it turned around the clone mad a swipe for her head and she dove underneath the sword blade. And as it wiped above her head she looked up and saw the other clones were jumping from the tree's down onto her. She rolled so that they landed just to her right. And then she was off again. Dodging swords and clones left and right. But eventually, the inevitable happened. As she looked back at the clones she tripped over a fallen log and when she looked up she was surrounded. The three clones formed a triangle around her. She was caught.

"Really Yumi, how long did you think you could run." he said. "You've lost. I win." the clone said as he walked towards her.

"My friend's will beat you. Even if you kill me, you'll lose." she said.

"Really." the clone said as it sat down on top of her and began the strangle her. "We'll in your last few seconds, allow me to explain why I've won. You and your friends are sad and demoralized enough with Ulrich gone. With you both gone they'll be to easy to beat." He continued as she struggled for air. "You and Ulrich were the best fighters in you little group. With both of you gone they don't stand a chance. You can try and stop me all you want, but the fact remains that the only person who can even hope to beat me is Ulrich and he's dead."

"No...he...isn't." Yumi forced the words out.

"Yes he is." the clones said. "I know what your doing Yumi. Your trying to last just a little bit longer so your friends can find the tower. But your friends won't find the tower because there is no tower. I'm kept here by a supercomputer that's indestructible. the only way to stop it is to enter my code. They can't find the supercomputer and even if they do they still can't reach it without your ship." he continued. "Face it Yumi, your friends can't stop me and nether can you. Ulrich's dead. Once your dead I can replace you with a clone and use it to replace the kids in the school. Your friends can try and stop me all they want, but they will die just like you. And once they're out of the way the world will be mine. No one can stop me Yumi, your going to die and no one is coming to save you." the clone said as the clone tightened it's grip even further. At this point Yumi's brain was so starved of oxygen she could barely move. And as she fought desperately against the clones strength. She was slowly fading away. Her arms went limp. Her eyes started to close. And as she took one last at the world she felt herself slipping away into darkness. And then the pressure on her neck was gone. The clone had heard something and looked in the direction of the noise. The sound of a motorcycle.

Suddenly it ripped into view. The driver ramped up the side off a fallen tree and the back tire connected with the clones head. It went through the clone, and the clone fell to the ground going static like all the other thing Xana created. Yumi gasped for breath and as life slowly returned to her she looked up at the driver of the motorcycle. He had jumped off of the bike in mid-air. And as she saw the face of the driver the blood froze in her veins. She didn't move a muscle. Because standing in front of her was Ulrich.


	4. Chapter 4: He's Back!

Ulrich's POV

The clone stood back up off the ground and looked at Ulrich first with rage, then confusion. And then he laughed at them.

"So, you came back to die with your friends." the clone said.

"I came back to stop you." Ulrich said.

"I can't seem to see you winning that fight. You really should have ran when you had the chance." the clone said as it split into three clone's and drew it's swords. Ulrich grabbed a fallen branch off the ground and used it for a sword. The clones just laughed at him.

"That twig won't do you any good." the clone said. "Observe." The two clones on the sides circled around Ulrich one coming at his left, one on his right, and one right in front of him. And he smiled. Ulrich could see just by the way the clones stood that he was the better fighter. The clones charged him all at once. They new he was a better fighter too. So, they tried to overwhelm him. The clone in the middle swung his sword at Ulrich's legs. Ulrich jumped over the sword, but here came the other two clone's swords. While Ulrich was still in the air the clone on the left swung at his head, and the clone on his right swung at his feet. Ulrich spun in mid-air. The swords passing over and under him. And as his feet hit the ground the middle clone swung at Ulrich's stomach. Ulrich turned and the sword slashed right in front of his eyes. And then Ulrich attacked. His stick may not be sharp, but it was still as big as a club.

As the sword passed in front of his eye's Ulrich swung his stick up into the clones head. It hit with a sickening crack. The clone disappeared, which left the two. The one on his left dove for his leg's and Ulrich back flipped over the other clone. He landed behind the clone and took it down like the first one. It all happened so fast Yumi barely had time to move. She stood their in awe as Ulrich took on all three clones and destroyed the duplicates. She was to busy watching Ulrich that she didn't realize that the other clone was about to grab her from behind.

The clone pulled her up by her neck and put his sword to her throat. Ulrich turned to find the clone and he froze when he saw them.

"Surrender. Or she die's." the clone said menacingly.

William's POV

He backed up into the alley and his back hit the wall. How was he going to get out of this one. And then it hit him. He wasn't. He was going to die. This was the thought going through his head as the creatures slowly walked down the alley towards him. The creatures were only a few feet from him when a roar sounded down the alley. The creatures retreated back out of the alley in fear. Then a creature as big as a rhino walked into the alley. It had gray skin, spikes on its head, foot long claws, razor like teeth, and black eyes. The creature was only a few feet in front of him now. William closed his eyes waiting for the end. But it never came.

He opened his eyes in confusion. The creatures eyes were only a few centimeters away from his. "Strange though," he thought, "It's eyes didn't have the symbol of Xana in them. "Wait! That means that Xana didn't send this after me. But then who did?" he thought. The creature seemed to be waiting for him to do something. He slowly stretched out his hand and rubbed the creatures nose. The creature started pushing its nose against his hand the way a cat would when you pet it. The creature picked him up with it's mouth, and slowly set him down on it's back. He leaned over and grasped the creatures neck as it took off down the street and into the forest.

Ulrich's POV

He had just looked up at the clone to see it holding Yumi by her neck, and with a sword at her throat.

"Surrender, or she die's." the clone said.

Ulrich didn't move. If he didn't surrender then the clone would kill Yumi. They would win, but Yumi would die. If he did surrender then the chances were the clone would kill Yumi anyway. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He didn't know what to do. And he didn't have much time to decide because the clone was started to press his sword to Yumi's throat harder.

"Ulrich. Don't." she said. And when Ulrich head her voice tell him not to give up. When he heard the fear in her voice. He knew he could never live with himself if he did what she said. He did the only thing he could. He dropped the stick that was in his hand. And he kicked it away from him.

The clone smiled as he knew that he had won. He let go of Yumi's neck and let her fall to the ground. He walked over to Ulrich, and raised his sword ready to kill him.

Yumi's POV

"Ulrich no." Yumi cried. But no one heard her. Her throat was hoarse from fear, exhaustion, and being strangled. She could barely make a sound. She could barley move. She could only lay there and watch as the clone prepared to kill the boy she loved. She couldn't let him die. She wouldn't. Somewhere deep within her she found the strength to rise up from the ground. She walked up behind the clone. He didn't notice her. He was to busy savoring the moment. And as his arms came up to deliver the final blow, she did the only thing she could. She reached up to the clones watch and pressed one of the button's. The watch was shut off, and as the clone swung his sword down it vanished from his hand. The clone froze at first with surprise, and then confusion. When the clone realized what had happened it became furious. It hit the button on its watch the sword re-appearing in his hand, and it began to turn. Yumi realized what was happening too late. She couldn't move or avoid the blow in any way. The clone spun around and it's sword stabbed her in the chest. She felt the searing pain of the wound. Felt the sword stab her. She felt it leave her body, and the last thing she remembered before she fell into darkness was Ulrich's scream of rage.

Ulrich's POV

It all happened in slow motion. The clone turned. Yumi fell. And as I saw her lying there in agony. I was overwhelmed by rage. I leaped to my feet, and tackled the clone. I grabbed the clones wrist and held it to the ground. With my other hand I started to viciously beat at the clone. It kicked me off and swung it's sword at me. I ducked the blade and grabbed the clone by the wrist and pushed the button on it's watch.

I then kicked the clone away. And as the clone got up a gray skinned creature the size of a rhino burst through the bushes and knocked the clone to the ground. The thing that surprised him the most was that William was on it's back.

"Need some help." William said with a smile.

"William, get Yumi and get her to the factory." Ulrich yelled pointing at Yumi's motionless body.

Upon seeing Yumi lying on the ground the smile faded from Williams lips replaced by worry. He quickly put her on the creatures back, and raced off to the factory. If Jeremy could launch a return to the past before Yumi died, then she would be ok. And as Ulrich watched them race off to the factory he turned to the clone who had gotten back up off the ground.

"Pointless. She doesn't have long to live." he said.

"All my friends have to do is find the tower." Ulrich said back. The clone just laughed.

"Fool. There is no tower." he said.

"They'll find a way to stop you." Ulrich said.

"Well, look on the bright side Ulrich. You may be about to lose the love of your life, your friends, and your world, but at least you won't be around to see it. You'll die right here and now." said the clone as it reached for it's watch. But it wasn't there. Ulrich smiled as he remembered that when he had knocked the clone down he had managed to pull the watch off it's wrist.

"Where?" it said in confusion. Ulrich held out the hand that held the watch. The clones eyes went wide.

"You know, I quite like your watch. I think I'll take it. And since your just a clone of me its not really stealing." he said as he put on the watch and pressed the button. The watch tightened on his wrist, and melded to his skin. The watch fused itself with his dna, giving him his Lyoko powers. His body was covered in a skin tight suit that he wore on Lyoko. His two swords appeared on his back and he pulled them out of their scabbard. The clone started to back away. The tables were turned. No longer was he the one with the powers and swords. Now Ulrich had them. The clone couldn't win and he knew it. So he ran. Ulrich chased after him, but the clone suddenly disappeared. Back to wherever he came from. With the clone gone Ulrich ran as fast as he could to the factory and prayed that Yumi was ok.

Jeremy's POV

He was sending Aelita and Odd to the supercomputer when suddenly the signal ended. With no computer to send them to Aelita and Odd were devirtualized and stepped out of the scanners.

"What the-." Jeremy said as he lost the signal.

"Hey Einstein, aren't we supposed to be looking at a supercomputer right now?" Odd asked.

"I lost the signal, the supercomputer was turned off." he said.

"How?" Aelita asked, but Jeremy never got to answer. William had just walked in carrying a wounded Yumi. Jeremy launch a return to the past. Yumi hasn't got long. Jeremy started to press button's on his computer.

"Return to the past now." he said as he pressed the enter button. As always the white bubble shot out of the supercomputer and covered the entire earth. The gang were all gathered in Jeremy's room a day before all this had happened. Ulrich was the only person that wasn't there. But that was because at that moment he was still gone. Or at least he was. Now they were hoping he would come through the door any minute. Yumi was hoping against hope that he wasn't gone again.

Then the door opened. They all looked to see who was standing in the door way, but it wasn't Ulrich. It was William. They all dropped their heads as their hopes were dashed away. They all waited. They waited and waited. But Ulrich never came. They all went to their dorms. Sad and Angry. Yumi was devastated. And as she walked home she started to cry. She was angry with herself. She had years with Ulrich. She could have told him how she felt. They could have been together. If only she wasn't so scared that he didn't feel the same way. She was so angry that she didn't realize that she had reached her house. She walked up to the porch, and wiped the tears from her eyes. She hid her sadness, and tried to smile. But it came out as little more than a frown. She gave up on the smile and just walked in.

Her parents saw her come in.

"Yumi, where have you been. It's almost midnight." her mother said.

"Sorry mom, but I really don't feel like talking." she said.

"Ok.., but one of your friends came by today. He's been waiting her since three. He's up in your room." her mother said.

"He? Her mother had said he." she thought. There was only one person it could be. She flew up the stairs, skipping steps two or three at a time. She flung her door open. And there sitting on her bed was Ulrich.

"Hey Yumi-" he began to say, but stopped when Yumi tackled him to the ground and hugged him with all her might. She let go of him and leaned down. And she pressed her lips to his. They kissed for no more than a few seconds, but to them it felt like sparks went off in their heads. Yumi broke the kiss and said four words.

"I love you too."

And then they kissed again.


	5. Chapter 5: Upgrades

**What did you guys like the last chatper? If you did give me a review please I like to read comments.**

Ulrich's POV

"I was sitting in Jeremy's room with the others listening to Jeremy talk about the fight against Xana."

"-the clone was one of Xana's worst tricks. Not the fact that it was a clone, we've handled them before. But the fact that the clone had Ulrich's power's and weapons is a clear fact that Xana is evolving. He's getting stronger every day, and the return to the past we did only made him stronger." Jeremy said.

Odd spoke up and said, "We thought we destroyed him for good last time. And because of it we were off guard, and Ulrich was nearly killed because of it." he said as he looked at me.

"I still wish I knew how you survived the digital sea." Jeremy said.

"We can't possibly figure everything out Jeremy." Aelita said.

"What I want to know is where that creature came from." William said. The creature was currently at the factory, when everything was over it hadn't wanted to leave so they let it stay.

"I don't have any idea about that one William." Jeremy said. "I know, but it would be useful to know how. But what I wanted to talk about was how Xana is getting stronger and more advanced. If we want to keep up, and keep winning we'll have to step up our game."

"Which is why we're going to the factory after school to get in a little bit of practice." Aelita said.

"Me and Aelita are going to the factory now to set up a few things, and I want Ulrich to come too. I want to get a look at that watch of yours." Jeremy said.

"I'd let you take it, but it won't come off." Ulrich said as Jeremy, Aelita, and he started to walk outside to the factory.

"Ow." Odd said, "Why does he get to go?" At that point William and Yumi were dragging Odd down the hall toward class.

At the Factory

They all went down into the supercomputer room where Jeremy sat down in the computer chair. Aelita stood next to him, and Ulrich sat down on the floor.

"I've already set up all of the programs that are going to prepare sector 5 for us." Jeremy said as he pressed a few more buttons on the computer. "All I have to do is start them. In the mean time Ulrich lets have a look at that watch." Ulrich got up and walked over to the computer, where he held out his wrist and Jeremy attached several wires to it. He started pressing a few buttons and then sat back in his chair as he saw the codes for the watch.

"Wow, ok ya I'm not so sure that I can replicate the codes in this watch, if I do it will take a few hours too replicate even one." Jeremy said.

"You can do it Jeremy." said Aelita.

"Ya Einstein." Ulrich said, "I may not know much about computers but those codes don't look near as complicated as the multi-agent virus you used against Xana."

"Ya, but that took me months to make." Jeremy said.

"Come on Jeremy." Aelita said. "You can do it." Jeremy took one more look at the computer screen and said.

"Here goes." And then he was lost in the digital world typing away at his computer. Jeremy typed for hours upon hours, and Aelita helped him when he got stuck. Jeremy got have way through with the codes for the watch when Odd, Yumi, William, and Ulrich walked in through the elevator doors.

"Shouldn't you guys be in the school still?" asked Jeremy.

"It's almost four Einstein." Odd stated.

"Wow. Time sure flies." Jeremy said.

"So is everything ready Jeremy?" Yumi asked.

"Almost. We still have to get you guys ready." Jeremy said.

"But Jeremy, we are ready." Odd said.

"Me and Aelita have made a few upgrades for you guys, but I have to virtualize you onto Lyoko to download them." Jeremy said.

"Cool, upgrades." Odd said. They all headed down into the scanner room, and took their turns being virtualized. Once Odd, Aelita, Ulrich, Yumi, and William were all in sector 5 they all ran to the correct room, and stepped inside. It wasn't very special. Just a square room with nothing in it.

"Ok guys, I have upgrades for Odd, Yumi, and Ulrich. As for Aelita and William. Their upgrades are a bit more complex, so it'll have to wait until next time." Jeremy said. As the group stepped to the middle of the room a triangle in the center of the room started rising from the ground. On the three sides of the triangle were areas for people to stand in. Odd, Yumi, and Ulrich each stepped into one of the pods. A glass cover slide over the entrance and incased each of them in their own pods. The pods started glowing as wires came down from the ceiling, and attached to the pods. The wires started to glow as well as the upgrade was being transferred. The glowing stopped and the pods opened, and out stepped the three. Each of them were different, and at the same time sort of the same. Each of them were slightly taller and leaner. Odds suit was basically the same except for the fact that his hands and feet were gray, metal, and blocky, gloves and boots. The boots had metal bars on each side of his ankles, and the gloves fingers came to a razor sharp point. Yumi's suit was exactly the same as before, but now she had a foot long stick hanging from her belt. She pulled it off, and it extended into a eight foot long staff. Ulrich's suit was completely different. It still had yellow and black colors, but the suit was different. On his shoulders down to his hands was yellow with a black glove over his fingers. The sides of his ribs were black, with the front and back of his chest, neck, and shoulders yellow. He had a black belt around his waist, and his legs were yellow with black shoes. in addition instead of his head band he wore a yellow ninja mask. Over his eyes was a black visor. He looked over at Yumi, and the visor started scanning her. it showed her weaknesses, strengths, and weapons. Also the visor labeled her as a threat level six. Ulrich found a pouch of smoke pellets on his belt, and he guessed that the visor was so that he could see even in the smoke. When he used the visor the others were outlined in blue, signaling that they were allies.

"This is going to be fun." he thought.

"Ok guys, I've modified part of sector five into a training course. It's down the next corridor on the left." Jeremy said. They all ran outside the room and took the next corridor on the left. They came into a large square room. It was empty except for a pedestal in the center of the room.

"Ok, the training room comes complete with turrets, moving platforms and walls, a few creepers I caught, targets, pits, and the button in the center stops everything. To complete the course you have to hit the button." Jeremy told them. "I'm starting it now." Jeremy said. The training course started, and the room seemed to come to life. Pillars rose up from the floor. Turrets popped out of the walls, ceiling, and floor. And creepers came out of the floor. They all split up and began the course. Odd activated his climbing gear, and he leapt to onto the nearest wall. He started climbing up to the roof. He was half way up the wall when suddenly the section of the wall he was on shot out in a square. he flipped up on top of it just before he was crushed against the other wall. A turret popped out from the wall next to him and fired lasers at him. He rolled out of the way, and jumped onto one of the pillars. And as he was in the air he turned sideways, and shot a laser arrow at the turret. It exploded and he landed on the pillar. he hopped from pillar to pillar firing laser arrows at anything that stood in his way.

At this time Yumi was getting some practice with her staff. Three turrets popped up from the ground, and fired lasers at her. She jumped out of the way, and rolled in between the three turrets. She swung her staff out and destroyed the nearest turret. She destroyed a second turret in the same fashion. By then the third turret had found her again, and she polvolted over it. She then spun and destroyed the turret. And then jumped onto one of the pillars

William was at this time fighting off three creepers, and a turret. He held his seven foot long sword in his hands. He spun in a circle with his sword pointing out, and it destroyed all three creepers. He then used his sword like a shield and blocked the lasers from the turret. He then destroyed it as well.

Aelita was fighting off a turret and a creeper. She formed a ball of pink energy in her hand and she shot it at the creeper. The ball covered the creeper with the energy and it exploded. She then did the same with the turret. And she then jumped onto a pillar, and it shot up towards the ceiling. She jumped off of it and landed onto another pillar.

During all of this Ulrich had been taking on anything he could. A turret popped up out of the ground in front of him, and started shooting lasers at him. He blocked every one with his two swords. He deflected it back at the turret and it exploded. Three turrets popped up in in a triangle around him.

"Triplicate." He yelled. Two clones of himself appeared beside him, and they all charged at a turret. Once the three turrets were destroyed a creeper started shooting lasers at him. He super sprinted towards the creeper, and did a wall run to get behind the creeper. He slashed it with his swords, and ran towards the button. Odd reached it first, and he jumped at the button. He landed on the pillar it was on, and just as he reached it he said. "Too easy." But before he touched the button he was shot off the pillar by a turret. Ulrich dashed up the pillar with supper sprint and went to press it when the pillar shot back into the floor along with the button. Ulrich fell to the ground with a thud. He stood up and saw the button pop out of the middle of the ceiling.

"We're not going to hit that button on our own. We have to work together." Yumi said. They all locked eyes, and they all knew exactly what to do. They had been fighting together for so long they could tell what they we thinking. They all moved at the same time. Odd went and jumped up to the nearest pillar. Ulrich and Yumi ran side by side with Aelita in between and a little behind them. Ulrich and Yumi worked together to protect Aelita. They destroyed turrets and creepers as they got in the way. When they reached a pillar Ulrich and Yumi jumped up and jumped from pillar to pillar. Aelita kept running to the next pillar. William ran and destroyed a turret that was shooting at Aelita. Then he stood in front of the pillar with Aelita running right for him. William put his sword parallel to the ground above his head. Aelita jumped onto Williams sword just as he pushed up, catapulting her into the air and onto the last pillar, directly below the button to stop everything. There were two pillars on each side of her with creepers on them getting ready to fire at her. Just as the creepers fired at her, and the lasers were about to hit her Ulrich jumped from a pillar causing him to pass right in front of her. And as he did he deflected the lasers back at the creepers, destroying them. Aelita looked back at the button on the ceiling just in front of her. She jump for it, but fell just a little too short and wasn't able to hit the button. She started to fall towards the floor. A fall that size would devirtualize her.

Odd saw her fall. he was on his overboard now. He flew towards her heading straight for the floor just like Aelita. Just as she was about to hit the floor, He grabbed onto her hand, and pulled her onto his overboard. As soon as she was on the overboard he pulled the front of the board up and they shot up back towards the button. Odd turned around to make sure she was still on the board. When he turned back he went to full speed, and said," Hand on!"

"To what!" Aelita yelled back. More turrets shot out of the pillars they were next to and started firing. Odd swerved the overboard through the lasers, and passed the turrets. Just before they slammed into the ceiling Odd shoved the front of the board down, the back pointing back toward the ceiling. The movement launched Aelita through the air. Just as she started to fall back down she reached out as far as she could, and she pressed the button. As she fell Odd caught her, and took her back to the ground where the others were already celebrating the fact that they won. The room deactivated, and all of the turrets and pillars disappeared into the walls, floor, and ceiling. Odd and Aelita jumped off the overboard and landed next to the others. Odd turned to her and said, "Nice going Aelita." ,as he held his hand up for a high five.

Aelita high fived back and said, "Thanks, but I wouldn't have been able to do it without you." Their eyes locked as they looked at each other, and for just a brief second they each felt something spark inside of them.

"What was that?" thought Aelita. But she just shrugged off the feelings as nothing more than friendship.

Odd did much the same thing, but he was still wondering what that feeling was. They were both snapped out of their thoughts as Jeremy said, "Nice going guys. I'll bring you back to earth, but before I do I want to test something out." Five pillars rose out of the ground in front of the others. On each was a flat circular disk. They all picked one up, and saw that it had grid patterns, and a dot in the middle. A line extended from the dot to the side of the disk, and traveled in a circle on the disk.

"It's a radar." Jeremy said. "Every time I get knocked out by Xana you guys don't know whats happening because I can't tell you. Now with this radar you'll be able to see monsters and towers on it, so that if I'm not there you won't be surprised."

"Awesome." Odd said.

"Nice." Ulrich and Yumi said.

"Cool." said Aelita and William.

"Ok, I want you guys to take up positions around the room to test them out. I've created a few targets, and labeled them with the same signature as a monster." Jeremy said. They all spread out around the room and looked down at the radars.

"I can see all five targets Jeremy." Yumi said.

"Same here." Ulrich said.

"Ditto." Odd said.

"I see all five." William said.

"Ok Jeremy, I can see all six too." Aelita said.

"Six?" Ulrich, Yumi, Odd, and William all said as they turned toward Aelita. Aelita realized too late what was wrong. There were only five targets, but she had seen six. She spun around toward the targets just as a laser was shot at her. A creeper had showed up, and was now firing at the others. Unfortunately for Aelita just as she was shot the wall opened up to reveal a cliff, with nothing but the digital sea underneath it. She was sent over the edge by the laser, and she desperately clung to the edge. She didn't fall, but in a few seconds she would. She could feel herself slipping.

"Guys. Aelita's hanging from the edge. You've got to get to her." Jeremy said. Just as he said that six more creepers showed up, and started firing. The group was pushed back onto the other side of the room. Aelita was slipping more and more. She kept trying to activate her wings, but they wouldn't work for some reason. Xana must have bugged them up. They would never get there in time to save her. At least not on foot. Odd looked around for his overboard. He saw it fifty meters away. Three creepers stood in his way. He charged them. He shot one with his laser arrows and it exploded. The other two kept firing. He took a laser in the shoulder, the leg, and the chest.

"Odd, you only have fifty life points left." Jeremy warned. He kept running. He shot another creeper, and then slid passed the last one. As he slid on the ground his feet landed on his board. He stood up on it, and was soon heading toward the cliff. But just before he reached the edge the last creeper got a lucky shot and hit his board. Just before his board disappeared he did the only thing he could. He jumped off, turning his back to the ground. The creeper hit him one more time in the back. While still in the air he went over the edge of the cliff just as Aelita lost her grip and fell. He dove down toward Aelita who still couldn't use her wings. He reached out as he neared her, and she did as well. He grabbed onto her hand, and with his free hand he reached out toward the cliff, and dug his claws into the side of it. His claws stayed in the cliff, but they kept sliding down toward the bottom of the cliff. Odd finally managed to get a good hold in the side, and stopped just short of the bottom. They hung passed the bottom, his claws only an inch from it. But Odd couldn't hold on forever. All ready his hands were straining to keep his grip.

"Jeremy, can you fix Aelita's wings. I can't hold on much longer." Odd said about to lose his grip.

"Just give me three more seconds." Jeremy said in a panic.

"We don't have three seconds. We need those wings now." Odd said back, his claws sliding down the cliff a little more.

"I fixed them." Jeremy yelled just as they began to fall. Aelita waved her hand over her star bracelet, and her wings appeared on her back. She grabbed Odds arms, and started to fly up. Jeremy sat back in his chair and gave a sigh of relief. Aelita flew over to the others who had destroyed all the monsters all ready. Her and Odd fell to the ground as her wings disappeared unable to carry their combined weight. The landed hard on the ground and both rolled in a snowball-like form. They rolled to a stop with Aelita on top of Odd. The momentum of their roll causing Aelita to get uncomfortingly close to were chest to chest. Their eyes locked. They felt that spark again. Aelita slowly started to lean down towards Odd. Odd started to move up to meet her. Their lips all most met when they realized what they were doing, and they separated. Aelita rolling off of Odd to lay next to him. Both of them were shocked about what just happened.

"Did that really just happen, or am I dreaming?" Odd asked himself in his head.

"I can't believe we nearly kissed." Aelita thought. "I'm supposed to be with Jeremy. I can't be kissing Odd." But she couldn't help but feel like she didn't really mean that. Did she really like Jeremy as much as she thought she did. She was really confused. But she was brought out of her trance as the others started asking if they were ok.

"We're fine." Odd said. "It's not like we haven't almost fallen into the digital sea before."

"I'm bringing you guys back to earth." Jeremy said.

"He didn't even bother to ask if she was ok. He's just acting like nothing ever happened." she thought angrily. They were brought back to earth, and they headed up to the computer room. Jeremy was sitting in the chair as usual.

"Looks like Xana didn't like our practices." Jeremy said. "Well, that's all we're going to do tonight. It's pretty late so you can go back to the dorms now. I'm going to stay a little and work on the new multi agent system we need to destroy Xana once and for all. But before you go, I've got something for Yumi." he said holding out a watch identical to Ulrichs. "It's the same as Ulrich's watch. It'll give you your Lyoko powers and weapons. Once you put it on it doesn't come off." He said.

"Thanks Jeremy." Yumi said as she put the watch on, and felt it tighten onto her wrist fusing it with her skin.

"I'm still working on the others, but they should be done soon." Jeremy said. "Well, see you guys tommarow." Jeremy said as he turned back to the computer. Everyone said bye and walked out of the factory. Aelita stayed back in the lab. She wanted to talk to Jeremy.

"Hey Jeremy." Aeltia said to get his attention.

"Hmm." he said back not taking his eyes off the screen.

"I was wondering if you wanted to go roller skating tomorrow after school." Aelita asked.

"No thanks. I've never really been to good at that." He said back.

"Want to go get ice cream." She asked.

"No I don't feel like it." He said back still not looking at her.

"Want to watch a movie." she asked getting annoyed.

"What movie." he asked.

"Avatar. The one with the big blue people, where they can go into different bodies." she said.

"No thanks Aelita. Besides, I'll probably be working on the multi agent system. I won't have time to watch such a ridiculous movie like that. It's nothing but science fiction." he said. That was the last straw.

"Science fiction!" she yelled. "Jeremy, everything here," she said motioning to the computer and the scanners down below, "is supposed to be science fiction." Jeremy still didn't look at her. He just kept on typing. She glared at him angrily before turning around and storming out. He didn't even notice her leave. She was angrier than ever. She had tried to do something with him. Tried not to get mad. But if he didn't even care enough to spend time with her, or look at her. Heck, she had nearly died from the digital sea. And he still just acted like nothing had happened. But if he thinks she'll just let him do that, and not get mad at him for it, then he has another thing coming. If he doesn't care, then neither do I. I'm done with him. she thought. She headed for the girls dorms, and to get there she had to pass through the boys dorms. As she did, she ran into Odd who was at the moment coming out of the bathroom back to his and Ulrich's room. Odd took one look at her face, and saw something was wrong.

"Aelita, what's wrong?" he asked.

"It's Jeremy. I keep trying to get him to spend time with me, but just now he wouldn't even look at me." she told him. "I asked if he wanted to go see a movie, and he just said that the movie was to science fiction."

"Funny. Everything we do to fight Xana is supposed to be science fiction." Odd stated.

"Exactly." she said.

"If you want to go to the movies Aelita, I'll go with you." he said. She looked at him stunned.

"Was he asking her out on a date?" she wondered. Seeing her expression he said.

"It won't be a date or anything. Just friends hanging out. If Jeremy doesn't want to spend time with you that's his problem, but I'll be more than happy to." he said. She was a little disappointed that he wasn't asking her out, although she didn't know why. She was still a bit confused about what happened on Lyoko, but she wanted to go to the movie's, and Odd was offering to go with her.

"Sure." she said. "Can we go tommarow?" she asked.

"Perfect. When?" he asked.

"Meet me by the bench where we all usually hang out at six." she said.

"Ok. See you tommarow princess." he said starting to turn back to go to his room. Aelita didn't know what possessed her to do this, but as he turned to go she stepped toward him, and kissed him on the cheek. He just stood there shocked. Unable to move. Aelita turned beet red with embarrassment, and quickly turned around to head to her room. Odd just stood there in the hallway wondering if that really happened, or if he was having a very good dream. He tried to ignore his feelings, but he couldn't deny that he felt somehow pulled toward Aelita. But he shouldn't be feeling that. They had all told the school that she was his cousin, so that she could enroll in the academy. But when you love someone, you can't stop yourself.

"Wait, did he just say he loved Aelita." he thought. He kept standing there thinking still unable to move until Jim caught him.

"Della Robia! What are you doing out here passed curfew?" he yelled shouting at him to go to bed. Odd quickly entered his and Ulrich's room, and layed down in his bed. Odd looked over at Ulrich's bed to see that it was empty.

"Probably hanging out with Yumi." Odd thought with a smile. Then his mind wondered back to Aelita. He couldn't stop thinking about her. And he fell asleep with her name on his lips. He even dreamed about her. he dreamed about her and him on their date the next day.

"Wait, it isn't a date." he reminded himself.

Ulrich's POV

Ulrich was walking Yumi home, as they talked about what had happened on Lyoko today. They walked hand in hand. Ever since Ulrich had survived the digital sea they had been inseparable. The only time they had been apart was when Yumi had to go home at the end of the day, and when they had different classes.

"Did you see what happened with Odd and Aelita today?" Yumi asked.

"Ya. When I saw them look at each other, and nearly kiss I couldn't help but think.." he said not finishing his sentence.

"Think what?" Yumi prompted.

"The way they looked a each other. It's how I look at you. I think their falling for each other." he said.

"And how exactly do you look at me?" Yumi said pretending that she didn't know what he meant.

"I look at you like I love you." he told her.

"And why is that?" she asked.

"Because I do." he said. They kept walking until they reached Yumi's house. He walked her up to the door, and she turned looking deep into his eyes. Him looking into hers. Then they both leaned forward until their lips met. They kissed for a few seconds, but to them it felt like an eternity. They both drew apart as they heard someone clear their throat. They both turned to look towards the door to see Yumi's dad standing in the door way.

"Oh. Hi dad." Yumi said, her face getting red at being caught kissing by her dad. Yumi's dad looked at her then at Ulrich.

"H-Hi ." Ulrich stuttered.

"Hello Ulrich." her dad said in a monotone voice. Ulrich had heard that tone of voice enough to know that it meant someone was mad. And he was the one her dad was mad at. Yumi took a look a her dads face, saw him silently tell her to go inside. She gave Ulrich's hand a squeeze to let him know she was sorry her dad was mad at him, and then she went inside. Closing the door behind her. Her dad just stood there staring Ulrich down for what seemed like an eternity. Despite the fact that he was scared of him he looked him in the eye. Refusing to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was scared. Her dad noted that he looked him in the eye. Finally he spoke.

"I may not like the fact that your dating my daughter Ulrich, but you too have known each other for a few years so i'm going to give you a chance. Don't take advantage of her, and don't break her heart." he told him.

"I'd never intentionally hurt her, sir." Ulrich said.

"I hope not. Because if you do, you'll have me to deal with." said Yumi's dad. And then he went back inside. Ulrich walked back to the academy were he snuck back into his room to find Odd already asleep.

"No surprise there." he said to himself. he climbed in bed and started to go to sleep. Odd was muttering in his sleep again. But Ulrich was a bit surprised with what he heard.

"Aelita." Odd said. he said that several times in his sleep.

"Yep. He's definetlly falling for her." he thought to himself. And then he fell asleep.


	6. Chapter 6: Loves a Strange Thing

It was the next day. Aelita had gotten up an hour ago. It was Saturday, so they didn't have any classes today. Yumi was going to come over today, out Aelita's request. She would be there any minute, so Aelita quickly went down to the cafeteria to get some breakfast. She was bringing her tray up to her room when she ran smack-dab into Odd.

"Oh hey Odd." Aelita said as she blushed remembering that she had kissed him the night before, even if it was just a kiss on the cheek she was still embarrassed about it.

They stood there a little awkwardly for a few seconds before both claimed they had to be somewhere. Aeltia quickly walked to her room, where she found Yumi waiting for her.

"Hey Aelita." Yumi said as Aelita shut her rooms door.

"Hi." she said back. Sitting her tray on the table and taking a bite of the food. Todays breakfast consisted of eggs and bacon with biscuits and gravy.

"So why did you want me to come see you today?" Yumi asked.

"I just wanted to talk. It gets boring her on Saturday. Everyone's doing their own thing, so I just thought we could hang out." Aelita said picking up a piece of bacon.

"Ok." she said. "So how have you and Jeremy been doing?" Yumi asked Aeltia. Aelita finished the last of her food, and just sighed. She looked over at the picture off the gang sitting on her bedside table and said,

"I really don't know anymore. I mean we used to do everything together, but now sometimes I can't even get him to look at me. And when we actually spend time together we're usually just studying." she said.

"Ok, but that doesn't answer my question. I was asking if you and Jeremy are still going out or..." Yumi said not finishing her sentence.

"Or.." Aelita prompted.

"Or if you were starting to spend time with a certain guy named Odd." Yumi said with a smirk. Upon hearing this Aeltia turned as red as a tomato.

"We're just friends Yumi." Aelita said not looking at her. Yumi just raised an eyebrow at her.

'Ok. Ok. You got me, so I like him. Doesn't mean we're a couple." Aelita said admitting defeat.

"So. Aelita if you like him then go for him. I mean you can't really think that he doesn't like you. Have you seen how he looks at you recently?" Yumi said.

"I know its just that..." Aelita said not finishing.

"That what?" Yumi asked.

"Nothing" Aeltia said. And that's when it clicked inside Yumi's head. Even though Jeremy didn't spend time with Aeltia he still loved her. Jeremy had freed her from Lyoko, and materealized her on earth. The only reason she was here was because of Jeremy. Maybe Aeltia felt that she owed him something. She didn't want to break up with him because he was the reason she was even on earth, not to mention that it would break his heart. But Yumi could tell she wanted to be with Odd. Aeltia didn't love Jeremy, but she wasn't willing to hurt his feelings and break up with him.

"Aeltia. Don't tell me your afraid you'll hurt Jeremy's feeling if you leave him. And please don't tell me that you think that you owe him something for materealizing you on earth." Yumi said. Aeltia just sat there not looking at her. But she realized that Yumi was right. She did owe it to Jeremy that she was on earth, but that didn't mean she had to date him. He didn't own her. She could go out with Odd if she wanted to. And she did. She wanted to so bad that it nearly hurt.

Eventually she and Yumi started talking again and the day drifted by like a dream, and before she new it, her clock by her bed started beeping.

"Oh no. I'm supposed to meet Odd right now to go to the movies." Aeltia said as she sprung up from her bed. Yumi just smiled as she watched Aelita hurry around the room getting ready.

Aelita raced through the school and out the doors into the courtyard. She raced over to the bench where they normally hang out, but it was empty. Odd was nowhere to be found. She had missed him. He was probably off somewhere thinking about how she stood him up. She sat down on the bench and she felt tears well up in her eyes.

"Aelita!" said a voice off to her right. She looked up and she saw Odd running towards her. She hadn't missed him. She stood up and turned to him as he came to a stop in front of her. A smile split across her face.

Odd's POV

He was running late. He was sure Aelita was gone by now, sick of waiting for him. He couldn't lose her. He finally had a chance with her and he just had to go and screw up. He turned a corner and he saw her sitting on the bench. He called out to her. "Aelita!" She looked up at him, and stood up as he stopped in front of her. He looked over at her to see traces of tears in her eyes. "Is something wrong Aelita?" he asked.

"No. Everything's fine." she said truthfully. Now that she knew that Odd wasn't angry at her the tears had stopped coming.

"I'm so sorry I'm late, I got held up by Jim." he said.

"It's ok Odd. Let's just go see the movie." she said.

"Ok, let's go." he said back.

Yumi's POV

After Aelita left Yumi left to. She walked through the school and headed towards Ulrich and Odds room. She figured that she'd stop by to see what he was doing. She walked towards the door and knocked. No one answered. She knocked three more times before she just opened the door. She walked in to find the room empty. Ulrich wasn't in his room. She waited in his room for a few minutes, and then decided to just talk to him tomorrow. She left the room and the school, and headed home. She got home and walked up to her room. She was still wondering were Ulrich was when she opened the door. She dropped the bag she was carrying on the floor, and turned on the light. She looked over at her bed and saw something lying on her bed. She walked over and sat down picking it up. There was a note attached to it. She unfolded the piece of paper and read the letter. When she finished reading it her entire body stiffened up. She didn't move. She just sat there looking at the paper and the object in her hand. She read the letter three more times just to be sure that she had read it right. She had. She let the letter slide out of her hand falling to the bed. She still couldn't move. She was completely shocked at what she read. Her throat was dry. She could barely breath. But on the inside she felt like she could do anything. She felt like she could jump out of her window and fly through the air. She had the biggest smile she had ever had plastered on her face. Her eyes gleamed. And a single tear of pure joy ran down her cheek. She leapt up from her bed and raced out the door of her house. She ran down the street towards Kadic Academy.

Ulrich's POV

Ulrich had just walked in the door, changed, and slipped into bed. Odd wasn't back from his date yet. He remembered talking to Odd about it earlier in the day. Remembered Odd saying that it wasn't a date. And remembering the slight blush Odd had on his cheeks when he said it. Yep. Odd was definitely falling for the pink haired princess. He was almost asleep when he heard a knock on his door. Groaning he got up from his bed pulling on a shirt as he did so. He turned the door knob and opened the door to find Yumi standing there. He would have said something to her, but as soon as the door opened she practically tackled him to the ground throwing her arms around him and kissing him. They stayed like that for what seemed like an eternity when Yumi finally pulled back. Although she didn't move her arms from around his neck.

"I take it you found my gift." Ulrich said with a smile'

"Yes I did." she replied. "And I have to say, I love it." And then they were kissing again. They kissed for about an hour. Then they just sat on his bed with Yumi in Ulrich's arms. It was late already, and they both were getting more and more tired. Ulrich looked down after a while to see Yumi had fallen asleep in his arms. Not wanting to wake her because she looked so peaceful like this he just leaned his head back and fell asleep too.

About ten minutes later his cell phone started ringing. Sighing he gently leaned Yumi down to the bed putting her head on a pillow he walked over and answered his phone.

"Hello." he said.

"Ulrich its Jeremy. Xana launched an attack. Head to the factory."

"On my way." he said. Putting the phone in his pocket he turned to wake Yumi up.

Aeltia's POV

The night went by rather quickly. Aelita was trying to watch the movie, but she kept watching Odd. She couldn't get him out of her mind. She just couldn't figure out whats happening to her. She never felt this way before. She thought her and Odd were just friends, but she wanted to be more. And when the movie was over and her and Odd were leaving she barely noticed. She was too focused on Odd.

And when they made it back to the academy Odd turned to her. She kept zoning out as she watched him standing there. Suddenly she found that he had said something.

"Sorry Odd. What did you say." she asked.

"I said I had fun tonight." he said.

"So did I." Aeltia said back almost zoning out again as she watched him.

"Well I'll see you tomorrow I guess." he said turning to walk into the school. Suddenly she was overcome by the feeling she had been feeling for the passed few days. She didn't want him to leave yet, and she lost all reason. Her brain lost control for just a few seconds, but that was enough. She grabbed Odd by the arm turning him towards her. She stepped forward and touched her lips to his. She didn't know what she was thinking. She wasn't thinking at all, but she did know that when their lips touched fireworks went off in her mind. She thought he would push her away, but instead to her surprise he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back like his life depended on it. They stayed like that for what seemed like an eternity. Finally when they ran out of air to breath they pulled back. Odd looked at her with surprise and said "What was that for?"

"I've wanted to do that for a very long time Odd." Aeltia said. And before she could stop herself she was saying something to him that surprised even her. "I think I love you." Odd was shocked. His eyes widened, and he just starred at her. Aeltia was just as surprised. Did she love him? Was that the feeling she had had for the last few days. Yes she thought. It was. But she didn't have any more time to think about it because Odd suddenly pressed his lips to hers kissing her again. She eagerly kissed him back. They kissed for a few minutes, and then Odd finally drew back and said. "I love you too." She was speechless this time. He loved her. She was so happy and joyous that she almost didn't notice that they had started kissing again. She didn't care. As long as she was with Odd she was ok with whatever happened. They kissed so long that she lost track of time, and before she knew it, it was nearly midnight. She would have loved to keep kissing Odd for as long as she could, but his phone started ringing. He stepped back and pulled it out of his pocket. He answered it.

"Hello." he said.

"Odd, Xana's attacking. Do you know where Aeltia is?" Jeremy said.

"Ya, she's right here." he said before he could stop himself. He wasn't sure how Jeremy would act if he found out they had just had kind of a date.

"What is she doing with you. It's nearly midnight." Jeremy said.

"Uh, I went for a walk because I couldn't sleep, and Aeltia couldn't sleep either so she took a walk to. So we kind of just ran into each other." he said thinking fast.

"Well...Ok." Jeremy said a little suspisously. "Just get to the factory. Xana's activated a tower."

"On our way." he said as he hung up. "Xana's activated a tower. Let's get to the factory."

They both bolted to the factory. When they got there they took the elevator down to the supercomputer. The ran out of the elevator and over to Jeremy who was sitting at the supercomputer.

"Yumi and Ulrich are already on Lyoko waiting for you." Jeremy said.

"Ok Einstein. Tell them we're on our way." Odd said. they ran down to the scanners and walked into two of them. Up at the supercomputer Jeremy started the virtualization program.

"Scanner Aeltia. Scanner Odd...Transfer Aeltia. Transfer Odd...Virtualization." he said.

Odd and Aeltia virtualized in the desert sector next to Ulrich and Yumi. Jeremy brought up their vehicles and they jumped on them. Aeltia stepped onto the overboard with Odd. And they all raced to the tower. They reached the tower and saw it unguarded. There wasn't a single monster in sight.

"Jeremy where are the monsters? We don't see any." Ulrich said as they all jumped off their vehicles, and started walking to tower.

"What are you talking about?" Jeremy asked. "There's a monster right in front of you."

"No there isn't." Odd said. "There's not a monster in sight."

"That's because we can't see them!" Yumi said just as they all were pelted with several lasers. They all dove behind the nearest cover.

"How can we fight something we can't see?" Odd said firing three laser arrows at random.

"Stop wasting your arrows Odd." Jeremy said. "I'll see if I can do anything about this." But suddenly Odd and Yumi got hit with three more lasers each, devirtualizing them.

Jeremy's POV

He couldn't figure out how to make the monsters visible. How were they going to deactivate the tower if they couldn't even see the monsters? But suddenly he was thrown out of his seat, and hurled into the wall. He looked back to the computer to see a clone of himself standing there. The clone dashed towards him. Just as Odd and Yumi walked out of the elevator the clone collided with him sending him towards the elevator passed the his two friends, and into the elevator. The clone pressed the button to the scanner room, and the doors closed before Odd or Yumi could get in.

"Jeremy!" they both yelled.

The elevator doors opened into the scanner room, and the two tumbled out. They rolled around on the floor for a few seconds. Each one trying to gain control. Finally Jeremy managed to through the clone off of him. The clone stumbled back into one of the scanners. It was open. Jeremy dashed forward pressing a button on the scanner closing the door with the clone inside it. Jeremy pressed a couple of buttons, and he manually virtualized the clone to sector five. Just then the elevator opened, and Yumi ran out looking for the clone.

"Where's the clone." she asked.

"Gone." he said breathlessly.

"How do I know your not the clone." she asked him.

"A few hours ago Ulrich gave you a present." Jeremy said.

"Ok I believe you, but how did you know that?" she asked.

"I had a question for Ulirch, and I went to talk to him just as he was leaving to hive it to you." Jeremy said as they took the elevator up.

When they got back up Jeremy found Odd sitting at the supercomputer.

"Jeremy, they can't figure out how to stop this thing. Ulrich's nearly out of life points and so is Aeltia." Odd said. Jeremy sat down in the chair and started typing again. He had to find a way to make the monster visible again.

Ulrich's POV

Ulrich was hiding behind a rock trying to figure out how to find the creature. Aelita was hiding behind another rock a few meters away. An idea started to form in his mind. Jeremy could still see the monsters on the supercomputer's screen. That meant that they had a digital signature. And Jeremy designed his mask visor to see monsters through the smoke from his smoke pellets by using their digital signature. Maybe his mask couls see the monster. He activated the visor and the virtual world seemed to turn a light hue of red. Ulrich saw the monster. It was a turanchula. And it was only a few feet from him about to fire. Ulrich threw one of his smoke pellets on the ground and they were both covered in smoke. Now the tables were turned. The monster couldn't see him because of the smoke, but he could see it. He dashed forward and stabbed his sword into the eye on the monsters head. It exploded. He ran out of the smoke, so Aeltia could see him.

"Aelita I took care of it. Run to the tower." he yelled at her.

It only took Aelita a few seconds to get inside the tower and deactivate it. Ulrich and Aelita both rematerialized on earth, and took the elevator up to the supercomputer. When they got up there they all just sat down around the supercomputer while Jeremy kept typing.

"Xana's getting smarter. And I don't think invisible monsters are the end. We're going to have to really step up our game." Ulrich said.

"Ya. We barely beat him this time." Yumi said.

"What was the attack anyway?" Aeltia asked.

"Xana created a clone of Jeremy and tried to kill him, but Jeremy managed to get rid of it."Yumi said.

"Nice one Einstein." Odd said. "But Ulrich's right. Xana's just going to get stronger. We have to do the same."

"Ya. Xana's getting stronger and more advanced." Jeremy said. "We have to keep getting better just like Odd said. And we'll start will this." he said as he tossed Odd another of the watches he had been trying to copy.

"Sweet!" Odd said excited as he put the watch on his wrist and felt it tighten and fuse with his skin.

"That'll give you powers just like the others." Jeremy told him. Jeremy turned around back to the computer and started typing again.

"Well I'm going home now." Yumi said as she started walking to the elevator. Ulrich got up and followed her to walk her home.

"Me too." Aelita said.

"Ya. I'm going to." Odd said as he and Aeltia walked to the elevator.

"I'm going to work on the multi-agent system some more." Jeremy said.

"Ok." they both said as the elevator doors closed.

They all left and went to bed. Odd stayed awake for a few hours thinking about what happened before the attack. He told Aelita that he loved her. And she loved him. and he fell asleep with a smile on his face.

Jeremy's POV

Back at the factory Jeremy had stopped working on the multi-agent system. He currently was sitting in the chair in front of the supercomputer with his back to it. Facing the opposite wall. His eyes were closed. To anyone else he would look like he was asleep. But his mind was working over time as he thought about everything that happened. The attack. The clone. How he virtualized the clone into sector five, and how he had just locked the clone in a room that only he could open on sector five. He leaned back in his chair with his eyes still closed. He spun around in the chair so he was facing the computer. After sitting like that for a few more seconds as he thought about what to do with the clone he finally opened his eyes. And in them was the sign of Xana. The clone started typing again, and he finished trapping Jeremy in sector five. And then he walked back to the academy. Back on Lyoko the real Jeremy was lying on the ground unconscious. Trapped in a room where no one could find him.


	7. Chapter 7: The Ninja and The Geisha Girl

Jeremy's POV

He was doomed. He was currently locked in a room at the center of a digital universe called Lyoko. The last thing he remembered was the clone pushing him into a scanner and manually virtualizing him into sector five. When he had awoken he couldn't remember what happened because he was still a bit unconscious. When he did remember what happened he had leapt to his feet, and tried to find a way out of the room he was trapped in. But there was no way out. He couldn't get a message to the others. He couldn't get out of this room. He couldn't do anything.

He sat down in the middle of the room. He stayed there for a few minutes before he realized what he was sitting on. He was sitting on the upgrade station that he had upgraded Ulrich, Yumi, and Odd with. It was currently retracted into the floor witch is why he hadn't noticed it before.

Flashback

"Jeremy, I was wondering when the upgrades you were making for William and me would be done." Aeltia said.

"I should have them done in about a week Aeltia. I'll upgrade you and William then." Jeremy said.

End Flashback

He told Aelita he would be done in one week. If he remembered correctly it had been three days since then. Four days until the deadline. And he was in the room where the upgrade would have to be uploaded. All he had to do was wait four days and Aeltia and William would come here for the upgrades and find him here. With renewed energy he pulled the upgrade station out of the ground. If the upgrade wasn't finished in four days the clone could just say that he wasn't done, and no one would come to help him. He would have to finish the upgrade from here. And he had a lot of free time to do it.

Ulrich's POV

It was noon. Ulrich was in the middle of his science class with Mrs. Hertz. She was in the middle of one of her boring lectures. As usual Jeremy and Aeltia were paying close attention. Yumi was in a different class at the moment. He wished she was in the same grade as them. Then they would have more classes together. Ulrich looked over at Odd who was sitting next to him. Odd as always wasn't listening. Instead Ulrich noticed, he was watching Aeltia and Odd. I wonder if they're a couple yet. It wouldn't surprise him. Ulrich was bored out of his mind, but he tried to pay attention. His grades hadn't exactly gotten better since Xana had came back. In fact Ulrich couldn't even remember his last good grade. If he didn't fail he got a C or a D. Ulrich looked down at the watch on his wrist. He had gotten the watch when Xana had made a clone of him who tried to kill Yumi and replace him. The clone used the watch as a way to have his Lyoko powers in the real world, and it had been very useful so far. The class dragged on. He tried to pay attention, but he kept zoning out o thinking of Yumi and the gift he gave her

"Ulrich Stern!" said the principle Mr. Delmas. Ulrich looked up to see that the principle had entered the room looking for him.

"Yes Mr. Delmas." Ulrich said.

"Your fathers here. He's in my office and wants to talk to you." said the principle. Ulrich got up and grudgingly walked to the principles office. He didn't want to see his dad. Him and his dad didn't exactly see eye to eye. He reached the door and walked into the office. He saw his father standing behind the desk. Upon entering his father turned to look at him. Ulrich was filled with anger at seeing his father. His disapproving stare. His angry eyes.

"Sit." his father said. Ulrich sat.

"I came her today to talk to you about your grades." his father said. "At the beginning of the year your grades were good. A B or a C every now and then, but now your grades barely ever make it to a D . The report card I got in the mail a few days ago is completely unacceptable. Your grades are lacking, your absent for at least one class a day, and you hang out with a bunch of delinquents." his father said. "I-"

"Leave my friends out of this. They have nothing to do with my grades." Ulrich said interrupting his father.

"Don't interrupt me." his father said. "Your friends are a bad influence on you. Your grades were fine before you started hanging out with them. I don't want you hanging out with them anymore."

"You can't control who I hang out with." Ulrich said.

"I can and I will. I'm going to inform the teachers that you are not to be near them again. I'm going to have your classes moved so you are with them there either." his father said. Ulrich felt his whole world crumbling around him. "I'm also going to inform the teachers that if you are seen with that Yumi fellow that they sould-"

Ulrich was up on his feet in the blink of an eye. His dad may be able to make sure he couldn't hang out with his friends, but if he thought he could separate him and Yumi then he had another thing coming.

"Don't even think for a second that you can keep me away from her. Because you can't" he said

"She is just a phase Ulrich. And I'm informing the teachers that if you are seen with her that you and her alike are to be separated and put in detention for a month." his father said.

"Go ahead. It won't make a difference." Ulrich said storming out of the office and back to class. He walked in with his rage clearly showing on his face. Normally one of the kids would make a joke about him getting in trouble with his dad on visits like these, but when they saw the anger on his face they thought that they would rather live for the rest of the day. Ulrich sat down at his seat next to Odd as Mrs. Hertz continued her lesson. Odd looked over at Ulrich and saw the pure rage on his face.

"Hey. What happened with your dad? I've never seen you this angry." Odd said.

"Ya, whats wrong." said Aelita and Jeremy who were one seat over looking at him.

"My dads having my classes changed so that I can't hang out with you guys. If I'm seen with you guys at all I'm going to be given a month of detention. I can't hang out with you three or Yumi." he said the last bit in almost a whisper. Yumi was the person he cared about the most. If he couldn't be with her he didn't know what he would do. They all had surprised looks on their faces. Guess they didn't think my dad would do any thing like this.

Clone's POV

He won't be able to be seen around us. Good. That means one less person to deal with. He looked down at his computer and slightly opened it so that he could check on his favorite prisoner. The computer said that Jeremy wasn't doing anything but working on an upgrade for two of the others. He's up to something. He wouldn't be working on something like an upgrade while he was a prisoner unless it was important. The clone shut the computer and pretended to pay attention to the class.

Aelita's POV

I wonder if Jeremy is done with the upgrades yet. I'll ask him after class. She looked over at Jeremy as he opened up his computer. He frowned for a few seconds thinking, and Aeltia leaned over to look at the screen. "Is there an activated tower?" she asked as Jeremy quickly closed the computer before she could see what was on the screen. Something was wrong with Jeremy. He wasn't acting right.

"There's no tower." he said.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing. I'm just busy with something." he said.

"Is it me and Williams upgrades. You said that you would upload them to use in a few days." she said.

Clone's POV

That's what he's doing. He new I put him in the upgrade station's room, so now he's making sure I can't say that its not done. If I give them the upgrade I could put a few bugs in them. A few mishaps here and there. I'll have to make them look like Xana bugged them up, or that it was just bad luck. But that shouldn't be a problem, and then there was the small problem of Jeremy being in the very room he needed. How was he going to do that.

He took one more look at the computer to see what he was doing. The fool had finished the upgrades, and was now trying to hack the door again. As if he was even close to doing it the first time. He may be smart, but he was nothing like me. I'm a computer after all. He couldn't possibly open the door, but what if-

Jeremy's POV

He finished the upgrades. they weren't that hard to do. Now he realized that he had told Aeltia wrong. He wouldn't finish in a week. He finished in a few days. Well, with that over he was currently hacking the door. he had been at it for thirty minutes. The last time he had tried this he had failed miserably, but he had to try. I mean he had three days left. He couldn't just sit here. He kept trying for another ten minutes when finally the door opened. He did it, and now he could go. The others would be her in a few days, but he could escape now. The room had stopped him from contacting the others via the supercomputer, but once he was out of it he could call them.

He dashed out the door and into the winding hallways of sector five. As soon as he was out he started to call Aelita's phone with the supercomputer. He was so focused on the ringing that he almost didn't notice that there were six creepers behind him. No sooner did he see them did they start firing lasers at him. He swerved and dove and rolled out of the way to avoid the lasers. Why wouldn't she pick up? Why not now? She always did before. He took a hallway on his left and ended up in a square room. There were over a hundred hallways to take going in any direction. In the center of the room stood a strange glowing pillar. It looked a lot like the supercomputer, but bigger. This one was at least twenty feet. Small pulsations came from it, as is glowed. he had never seen that before. What was it?

"Hello." said a voice. She answered!

"Aeltia! Aelita it's Jeremy! Xana made a clone that trapped me on Lyoko in sector five. Get the others, and-" he started to say.

"Hello...Hellllooo." she said. "Is anybody there? Hello." She couldn't here him. But why? Why couldn't she here him? The pillar! It must be blocking the signal somehow.

"Hello." she said again.

He wished he had spent some time on Lyoko to figure out what his power was. He needed them now. He focused as much of his strength and will power that he could and hoped it would work. Long tendril-like cords shot out of his fingers and embedded themselves in the ground. They started to glow, and the ground changed around him. Little blue lines like the ones on computer chips came from the ends of the cords and extended in every direction. Anything they touched glowed and vibrated. He could manipulate the technology in sector five. Like how Xana does when he causes walls to rise up from the ground. When the lines from the cords on his fingers reached the pillar in the center there was a shudder. A small hum as the pillar was shut off, and all the lights and sounds from it vanished. It was off.

"Hello. Is anyone there. If this is some prank or something-" she said.

"Aelita!" he said.

"Oh. Hi Jeremy what did you want.

"Aelita I need help, go to the factory, and-" And the line was shut off. Just like that. He was cut off from the outside world. And as that happened hundreds of creepers slithered out of the hundreds of hallways around him. He looked around at them. He couldn't even begin to count them all. He had told Aeltia to go to the factory. Hopefully she would go there without running into his clone, and then she would see him on the computer screen. All he had to do was stay away from the creepers and not get caught long enough for her to get there.

So he ran.

Clone's POV

Cut him off just in time. Now to catch him again. "Good thing I thought to open the door for him, so that he wasn't in the upgrade room. Now I just have to seal him away again and-" he said as he saw something on his computer screen.

"Hmn. She's trying to call him back." he said to himself as he rerouted the phone line.

"Hello" he said.

"Jeremy. What were you talking about just now?" she asked.

"What do you mean? I haven't talked to you at all today." the clone lied.

"Well if it wasn't you then who was it?" she asked.

"I'm sure it was just a wrong number." he lied again.

"No. they sounded just like you. I think Xana may have tried to pull a trick on me. Go to the factory and run a scan for any activated towers. I'll get the others." she said.

"Aeltia I'm sure there's nothing to worry about-" he started

"Do it Jeremy." she said. The line went dead. The clone was furious. He hadn't been able to keep her away. She and the others would reach the factory and find Jeremy. His plan would be ruined. He couldn't let that happen. He had to stop them, or slow them down long enough to capture the boy. He would need help. He started typing on his computer. Being in the boys room he could only control part of the supercomputer, but he could still do whatever he wanted with it. A wolfish smile split his face as the scanners at the factory opened to reveal three people. He could do more though. He started typing on his computer and hacked into the phone lines again.

Odd POV

Odd was in his and Ulrich's room playing with kiwi when his phone rang. He answered it.

"Hello." he said.

"Hey Odd its Aelita-" she said. Odd only heard that much before a loud piercing sound came from his phone making him pull the phone away from his ear while cringing as it reached his ears. When it stopped after a second he put it to his ear again.

"Sorry Aelita I didn't hear that. Can you say it again?" he asked.

"I said meet me in the forest in ten minutes." she said. Her sounds strange. Kind of monotone. Maybe she has a cold or something.

"Ok. Be there soon." he said getting up and heading out the door.

Ulrich's POV

Yumi's POV

Yumi and Ulrich were currently in her room sitting next to each other with her head lying on his shoulder. He was asleep. Her phone rang. She sighed as she got up and went to get it.

"Hello." she asked.

"Yumi its-" the person began. But a loud piecing sound came from her phone causing her to pull away from it cringing. When it stopped she put it back to her ear.

"Hello." she said again.

"Hello Miss Ishiama. This is the principle Mr. Delmas. I want to talk to you about your current grades in your classes. Please come up her right now." he said.

"Yes sir." she said. She hung up and looked over at Ulrich. She went over and woke him up.

"Hey." he said.

"Hey." she said back. "Mr. Delmas wants to see me. You have to go." she said sadly.

"Ok." he said. They kissed once and then Ulrich jumped down to the ground off the balcony. With her dad being home he couldn't just walk out the front door. Especially since he was even supposed to be there in the first place. Then Yumi left a few minutes later to meet with Mr. Delmas.

Ulrich's POV

He was walking back to the academy when he heard his phone ring. He answered it.

"Hello." he said. But before the person could answer a loud piercing sound came from his phone. When it stopped he put the phone to his ear again.

"Hello" he said.

"Ulrich it's your father. I want you to meet me at the park. We need to talk." his father said before hanging up. Ulrich didn't want to go see his father. But if he didn't his father was likely to send police out to get him, so he grudgingly started heading to the park.

Aeltia's POV

She had tried calling all of the others, but when she did a piercing sound came from her phone cutting her off. She was certain that this was the work of Xana now. She raced to the factory. Heading through the sewers coming up on the bridge of the factory. She raced into the elevator and down to the supercomputer. She sat down in the chair and tried calling the others from the computer. Just before she hit send on the computer she noticed something. Someone was on Lyoko. There was a digital signature on the screen. She took a closer look and gasped.

"Jeremy." she said. "Is that you."

"Aeltia de-virtualize me." he said.

"What? Why?" she asked.

"Just do it. Re-materialize me. Now." he said. Aelita pressed several buttons on the computer and brought Jeremy back to earth. A second later Jeremy came up the ladder and ran over to her.

"Jeremy, what were you doing on Lyoko." she asked.

"Xana made a clone that trapped me on Lyoko." he said. "We have to find him before he does any more damage.

Odd's POV

Odd reached the forest quickly, and then he walked around until he found Aelita. She was standing in a small clearing with trees on all sides blocking anything from seeing inside. He walked up to Aeltia. She didn't move. She just stood there watching as he approached. But when he reached her she walked up to him. we wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him full on. He was surprised to say the least, but he certainly wasn't going to complain. She kissed him so much that they fell over on the ground with her on top of him. His eyes closed as they kept kissing. What he didn't see was that while they were kissing vines were growing up from the ground and wrapping around his arms, legs, and waist. Something was wrong he thought. The laast time he had kissed Aelita sparks went off in his head. Now, he didn't feel anything. He pulled out of the kiss, and looked her in the eyes. That was when he noticed the vines. The vines tightened they're grip on him and his arms, legs, and waist were pulled to the ground securing him.

"I didn't think that it would be that easy to trick you. I guess I was wright when I guessed that you loved that girl." said the clone of Aeltia as Odd saw the sign of Xana in her eyes.

Yumi's POV

She walked into the principles office to find the principle laying on the floor. She ran over to him and found he was just unconscious. But then she heard the sound of laughter behind her. She turned to see a clone of the principle standing in the corner. The clone dashed for her, and she rolled under it and out the door. She took the stairs up one more level and ran out the first door she saw. She made a mistake. She had reached a dead end. the door she went through lead to the roof. She heard the clone behind her, and bolted to the other side of the roof. She didn't have a choice. She reached the edge of the roof and turned around. She didn't see the clone anywhere. And then someone grabbed her from behind. She put all her weight on the person halding her and they toppled over onto the very edge of the roof. The clone rolled on top of her and her head was hanging of the side of the roof. The clone kept trying to push her down further, but she fought against him. Still though she stated to slowly slip of the roof.

Ulrich's POV

Ulrich made it to the park easy enough. And he found his dad standing in front of a fountain. He walked over to him and stood next to him.

"I've decided," his father said. "to let you hang out with that Yumi girl again."

"Really?" he said. "What changed your mind?" he asked.

"I saw how your friends have been such a good influence on you and thought it would be ok." his father said.

Ulrich may be able to believe a lot of things, but one thing he couldn't believe is that this was his father. He looked him in the eye and saw the sign of Xana in them. And then the clone grabbed him dragging him toward the fountain. The clone pulled him into it and began to drown him. He fought the best he could, but he slowly faded away. The world becoming dark. He couldn't breath, and he was starting to slip away.

Jeremy's POV

Jeremy had taken Aeltia's place in the chair as he explained everything that had happened. If he could lock the clone out of the computer then he would gain control over everything the clone had done. It took him several minutes but he locked him out of the supercomputer. Once that was done he turned his attention to the clones.

"What are you going to do?" asked Aeltia next to him.

"I can't get rid of the clones, but I can bug them up." he said. he typed a few more things on the computer, and then he leaned back into the chair.

"There." he said. "The clones won't be able to touch anything but something from Lyoko or anything that is digital." he said.

Yumi's POV

The clone had given up trying to push her off the roof, and now just strangled her. She slowly started to fade away when suddenly the clone went static and the pressure was gone as it was bugged up. With the pressure gone she hit a button on her watch and her Lyoko form appeared on her. She rolled over on top of the clone, and shoved the razor edge of her fan into its neck. The clone burst into a thousand pieces as if it had been de-virtualized on Lyoko. Then she dashed to the factory.

Odds POV

The clone sat on top of him as one of the vines wrapped around his neck and started to strangle him.

"Ow. What's the matter. Are you having trouble breathing? Maybe this will help." said the clone of Aelita as she leaned down and kissed him again making it even harder to breath. Suddenly the clone went static and so did the vines. He passed through the vines, but could still touch the clone. He kicked the clone back several feet, and it landed on a rock. When it landed it broke into thousands of pieces as if it was de-virtualized on Lyoko. And then he dashed to the factory.

Ulrich's POV

He was fading out of the world and was slowly drowning, but suddenly the clone went static and he came up from the water. Ulrich pushed a button on his watch, and rolled over on top of the clone. Pulling out his sword as he went as his Lyoko form appeared on his body. He shoved his sword into the clones stomach and it broke into a thousand pieces as if it had been de-virtualized on Lyoko. Then he dashed to the factory.

Jeremy's POV

He heard the sound of the elevator behind him. He turned and saw the others walk out.

"Hey guys." he said.

"What's Xana's attack." they asked.

"A better question is what has been Xana's attack. For the passed week Xana had me trapped on Lyoko and a clone of me on earth." he said.

"That would explain why you've been acting a little strange." Ulrich said.

"So where's the clone now?" Yumi asked.

"I set up a tracker on him. His last location was my room, but I doubt he stayed there once Aeltia brought me back from Lyoko." Jeremy said.

"So how do we find him." Odd asked.

"The new clones that Xana's been using have minds of their own. Used to we could just expect Xana to come here to attack us, but I think that Xana realized that instead of sending them here so we can destroy them. He could just avoid us for a bit and keep the clone in our world. So there isn't an easy way to track them short of putting a GPS on them, but that's near impossible." Jeremy said.

"So you have no clue were he is?" Yumi said.

"I didn't until I hacked into the security cameras of a few of the stores in town to see if I'd get lucky." said Jeremy as he pulled up the video on the supercomputer. They all saw the clone walking down the street looking behind him every now and then. "That's when I found him."

"Where?" Ulrich asked.

"It looks like he's headed to the new construction sight down town." Jeremy said. Recently some rich guy decided that their town wasn't good enough, and chose to build a circular skyscraper just on the edge of town. It was basically just a cylinder of metal with windows. And the construction was just beginning. The construction crew was there 24/7 working. It was like they didn't sleep or something.

"Then lets go." Yumi said. Everyone but Jeremy left, and headed toward the construction sight. They saw the clone almost twenty yards in front of them. There were people all around them. If they attacked the clone not only would everyone see, but the cop that they saw leaning against a wall was likely to help the clone thinking that they were assaulting someone. But the cop was also useful to them. Thought Aelita as she had an idea. Aelita suddenly ran towards the clone shouting, "Help. That man stole my purse." The clone looked back, and seeing all four of them behind him bolted in the other direction. To the cop, Aelita had just said the clone had stole her purse, and the clone obviously ran off. So naturally the cop thought that the clone was a criminal. The cop stepped out in front of the clone to stop him, but the clone grabbed the cop by the shirt and electrocuted him. Nocking him out cold. The clone changed from Jeremy to the cop. Why would he do that. And then she remembered that cops carried guns. If the clone had turned into an exact copy of the cop then he now had a gun.

To the people around them a cop had just been electrocuted by a shape shifting creature. They began to panic. The clone turned and fired the gun twice at Aelita. One bullet raced passed her head, but the other would have hit her. But just before it did Ulrich's swords came out of nowhere in front of her and deflected it. Yumi then threw her fans at the clone and destroyed the gun. No one had seen either of them turn into their Lyoko forms. That was good. If they had to do a return to the passed then Xana would only get stronger. The clone took off into the construction zone. Ulrich and Yumi followed him. The clone jumped up to the frame work of the first two floors. Ulrich and Yumi jumped up to. Ulrich in front of the clone, and Yumi behind it. They stood several feet from it, both of them ready to strike at a moments notice. Ulrich and Yumi locked eyes, and new exactly what they would do. Yumi threw her fans at the clone, and missed. Then she pulled out her bo staff and charged the clone. As the fans missed on purpose Ulrich split into three and the two clones jumped out and deflected the fans back to the clone. The real Ulrich charged the clone swinging his swords. The clone dodged Yumi's bo staff and then nocked her down from the metal framework they were standing on. Then the two fans clipped the clones arms and distracted it long enough for Ulrich to hit its leg with his sword. Ulrich stopped thinking they won, but then the clone turned into a copy of Ulrich in his Lyoko form. The clone attacked Ulrich with it's swords. Ulrich deflected a few hits before jumping to another of the metal bars. The clone followed him swinging the swords and cutting through the bars as Ulrich dodged and ducked and jumped from bar to bar. Ulrich jumped again, but this time he turned and threw his sword in midair. The sword hit the clone it the stomach, and it fell down below and shattered on the ground. They had made it to the very top of the frame work. The top of the skyscraper. Ulrich made his way down and him and the others ran off back to the factory.

They finished fixing everything the clone had done and then they went to the academy to sleep. In the morning they were all in Ulrich and Odd's room when Jeremy walked in with a news paper.

"You and Yumi made an impression on the city Ulrich." Jeremy said as he put the paper on the bed. the front page had a picture of him and Yumi in their Lyoko forms fighting the clone. The headline read Mysterious Hero's Save Group of People from a Shape Shifting Sociopath trying to destroy construction project.

" Well that's new." Yumi said.

"What are they calling them?" Odd asked.

Jeremy looked at the paper and said, "They're calling Ulrich the Masked Ninja, and Yumi the Geisha Girl."

"Cool." Ulrich and Yumi said. Odd was about to say something, but then the supercomputer beeped. Jeremy walked over and sat in the chair looking at the screen.

"It's a message. And it's encrypted." Jeremy said.

"Can you hack the encryption?" Aelita asked.

"Maybe." Jeremy said, "It doesn't look like it'll take that long. It's not a very strong encryption." Jeremy turned back to the computer and started typing away. Jeremy said it wasn't a very strong encryption. He didn't say how long it would take regardless of the encryption. They sat there watching him in the factory for a least an hour before he sat back in the chair, done. "Ok. I'm done." he said as they all gathered around the computer screen.

"What's it say Einstein?" Odd asked.

"I'm not sure, but it mentions the creature that saved William back when Ulrich got replaced with Xana's clone." Jeremy said as everyone looked over at the creature sitting in the corner.

"What else does it say?" Yumi asked.

"It says something about the supercomputer, and... Aelita?" he said as he read her name on the screen.

"Why does it say something about me?" she asked.

"I know why." Ulrich said. They all looked at him as he pointed at the bottom at the screen. Jeremy leaned forward and read what Ulrich was pointing at.

"I don't believe this!" Jeremy said.

"What is it Jeremy/" Aelita said.

"Ya, what's it say?" Odd asked.

"The message came from the internet, and it's signed...Franz Hopper." Jeremy said. They all stood there shocked. Aelita was the only one who could speak. The others were still in shock.

"Daddy?" she said.


	8. Chapter 8: Underground Part 1

Aelita was leaning against a tree in the park. A picture in her hands, and a copy of the letter sent by her father. Her father. The creator of Lyoko, Franz Hopper. He was alive, but how? She saw him die right in front of her. She looked down at the picture of her father. She had been staring at it all day, as if she was hoping that her father would just jump out of it. Then she looked at the letter. She had read it at least a thousand times by now. She was hoping to get the location of her father from it but all it said was a few things about the supercomputer, the creature, and her. But nothing important. She looked back at the picture of her father.

Flashback

She was on Lyoko. She looked around her, and saw the blue-ish holographic screen at the edge of sector five. There were flying mantas all around her firing lasers constantly. And then she saw her dad. A giant glowing ball of energy floating above her. The mantas shot laser after laser at him, but he didn't move or block them. He just let the lasers hit him.

"Aelita," came Jeremy's voice from the computer. "Franz is supplying the energy I need to launch the program, do it now." If she did her father would die. She had already saw that in her dreams. She couldn't let that happen.

"No...No" she said firing an energy field at the manta's. She missed and the manta continued to fire.

"Aelita. If you don't do it now then you're father will have died for nothing." Jeremy said. Aelita looked at her father and then at the screen in front of her. "I'm sorry daddy" she thought. She stepped forward and put her hand on the touch screen. And Xana was gone. The multi-agent system sought out and destroyed him. Completely.

Or at least they thought.

End Flashback

A single tear ran down her cheek. She closed her eyes and held the picture in her arms, hugging it as if it were her father. A hand touched her cheek whipping away the tear. She opened her eyes to see Odd kneeling down next to her looking at her with concern in his eyes. She looked at him for a few seconds and then flung herself into his arms tears flooding down her cheeks. She felt his arms wrap around her and pull her in. She hugged him tighter crying into his shoulder for what seemed like hours until she finally stopped her tears. Odd pulled back to look her in the eyes, and whipped away the tears on her face.

Odd sat down next to her leaning against the tree as well. He wrapped his arms around her, and she rested her head on his shoulder. It had been a week since they had admitted that they were in love, and they still hadn't told anyone except for Ulrich and Yumi. They weren't too sure how Jeremy would react, so they didn't tell him. But now Aelita was tired of lying about where they were going, or what they were doing. She just wanted to get it over with.

"I want to tell Jeremy about us." she said.

"Now?" Odd said pulling her in tighter.

"Yes." she said. Odd thought for a moment and then said.

"If you want to then lets do it." Odd said getting up. She got up as well and followed him towards the factory where Jeremy was working on the watches.

Normally they would take the sewer tunnel, but neither of them was looking forward to telling Jeremy, so instead they took the longer route through the forest. However they soon reached the factory and took the elevator down into the supercomputer room. There they found Jeremy sitting at the computer as usual typing away. They walked over to him. Odd stopped a few feet away, but Aelita continued until she was about two feet from him. He hadn't even noticed them yet. This was one of the reasons that Aelita had left Jeremy. He never paid any attention too her unless she had something to say about the supercomputer, and even then it was a limited attention. Gathering her courage she reached out and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Jeremy." she said. He practically jumped out of his skin.

With a shout of surprise he turned towards them. "Don't do that Aelita." he said.

"Sorry." she said apologetically. "Jeremy I need to talk to you."

"What about?" he said turning back to the computer typing away.

"Not this time Jeremy. You're going to give me you're full attention on this." she said causing him to turn back. "Jeremy, time and time again I would want to spend time with you, and you would ignore me or say you're too busy. Well I got tired of it. I'm not going to go out with you any more. I thought I was in love with you, but it was just a crush. Now I know who I love." she said turning towards Odd. "I love Odd." THAT got Jeremy's attention. He lept up from his seat.

"What!" Jeremy looked at Odd. Odd was the schools worst student. Not because of his behavior but because of his grades. He was failing practically all of his classes. He was messy and lazy. Jeremy was a star student. He was neat and was always prepared. He just didn't understand how Aelita could love Odd and not him. Normally Jeremy would have been collected and sensible, but now he just went with his first instinct, and instead of being collected he was angry. "Fine! If you want to be with him instead of me then go ahead!" he shouted running out of the room and into the elevator. But just before it closed he shouted, "And don't bother calling me to help with Xana anymore either." The doors shut and Jeremy was gone. Aelita walked over to the computer chair and slumped down into it. A single tear ran down her face. Aeltia loved all her friends like family. Losing one of them was something that hurt her deep inside. Odd came over to the seat, and kneeling down wrapped his arms around Aeltia pulling her into a comforting hug. Aelita wrapped her arms around Odd and he pulled her into him, hugging her tight. She sobbed into his shoulder crying her eyes out. He lightly kissed the side of her head pulling her tighter. Eventually she stopped crying, and pulled away form Odd. He looked into her eyes to make sure the crying had stopped. And when he saw it had he said,

"Are you OK Aelita." Aelita looked him and said,

"No, but I will be. Eventually."

Yumi's POV

"So how have you been doing these last few days?" Ulrich asked Yumi. Yumi looked up from the book she was reading on the other end of his bed to where Ulrich was sitting up against the wall.

"Nothing really. The most exciting part of the week was babysitting my brother." she said remembering how her brother had been annoying her the other day.

"Wow. How boring was your week?" he asked.

"Very." she said. Yumi went back to her book, but after a few seconds her phone went off. She reached over and saw that it was her parents calling. She glanced at the clock and found out why. It was almost ten, her curfew. "Sorry Ulrich, but I have to go. My parents are expecting me home by ten." she said gathering up her things. Ulrich looked up from where he had started to nod off and said,

"Ok. See you tomorrow. Love... you...", by the time he had said it he was asleep. Yumi looked over and smiled at him. She knew it had been a rough day for him. They had all met at the factory the night before to try and locate Franz, and it had taken most of the night. And since Aelita had been feeling sick, and none of them would let her leave her room Ulrich was the one who had piloted the Skid while the others slept. It was lucky that Xana hadn't attacked them. If he did she wasn't sure if they would have waken up. She walked over to the sleeping form of Ulrich and kissed him on the cheek.

"See you tomorrow Ulrich." and then she was walking down the street to her house. She walked for about ten minutes before she had the small feeling that someone was watching her. She turned her head looking to her right at the construction zone she was passing by. Their were hundreds of workers in the front working on various things, but their was one worker standing right up at the fence doing nothing. Except stare at her. He didn't move or talk or blink, just stare. She slowed down her walking speed, and pressed a button on her watch. An object appeared in her left pocket. The one blocked from the workers view. She pulled it out. It was the new disc radar Jeremy had given them all. When he had downloaded the upgrade her had upgraded her watch as well. She pressed the button on the side turning it on. The familiar grid lines appeared on the screen along with the dot in the center with the line traveling in a circle. And her heart nearly stopped, literally. She thought she was going to have a heart attack.

There, displayed on the screen was hundreds of little red dots marking a creature of Xana, or a possessed person. She put the disc back into her pocket, and without looking back or a warning she bolted forward towards the factory as fast as she could. It was the very fact that she hadn't looked back at the worker that betrayed her. Before she had taken ten steps she felt something hard collide with her head, and she tumbled to the ground. She slowly rose up on her hands and knees looking around, but the world was a blur as her vision faded in and out of darkness. Just as she was about to pass out she pressed the communications button on her watch to call her friends, but before she could say anything a fist came down on her skull again knocking her out.

Ulrich's POV

Ulrich was laying on his bed in his room trying to get some sleep before morning. He'd need it if Xana attacked tomorrow. And he was just slipping into a deep sleep when he heard a loud beep from his watch.

Groaning, he sat up and looked at his watch. He frowned slightly when he realized Yumi had opened her watch communications. He waited, but she didn't say anything, so he said,

"Yumi, you there?" He waited a few seconds.

"Ulrich?" said a voice that wasn't Yumi's.

Aelita's POV

After Jeremy ran out of the factory Aelita began looking at what he had been doing. She found three watches that she assumed was meant for her, Odd, and William. Passing one too Odd before putting one around her own wrist. She turned to the supercomputer examining the upgrade that Jeremy had been uploading into the watches. She noticed that her and William's upgrade was already uploaded.

"One less thing to worry about." She thought.

She started the upload again watching the bar fill up slowly to about ten percent.

"This is going to take a while." She told Odd. He had been pressing random buttons on his watch to see what they did for the past few minutes. He now stopped and walked over to her.

"You sure you're ok. I know you cared for Jeremy like a brother." He asked putting a hand on her shoulder. She was about to answer when her watch beeped along with Odds. She looked down and frowned. Yumi had opened communications. She waited for Yumi to say something when she heard Ulrich's voice instead,

"Yumi, you there?" he said.

"Ulrich?" she said.

"Aelita, when did you get a watch?" he asked.

"Just now at the factory. Odd has one too, and William's is right here." She told him.

"Hi." Odd said turning on his communications as well.

"Hey Odd, so does anyone know why Yumi isn't responding?" he said.

"No. It's really strange. I think you should head over to the factory Ulrich." Aelita told him.

"I'm already halfway there." Ulrich said ending communications.

"Odd could you call William?" said typing away at the computer.

"What about Yumi?" Aelita asked taking out his phone.

"Her communications are up but she isn't responding, so I don't think it'll matter how we call her. I think something's happened to her." Aelita said. After a few minutes Ulrich and William walked in. Aelita tossed him the last watch which he caught with no problem.

"Got any idea's why Yumi isn't responding?" Ulrich said standing behind the computer chair with everyone else. Aelita turned back to the screen typing a few buttons on the keyboard.

"No." she told him quickly, "But she isn't responding, and the communications are still open."

"Which means what exactly?" William asked.

"I think Yumi's in some kind of danger, but she managed to open communications before she passed out." Aeltia said.

"How do you know she passed out?" Odd asked.

"All of our watches our linked into the supercomputer, and they're also infused into our DNA which gives me access to everyone's vitals. Yumi's heart rate is currently beating at a regular pace albeit a much slower one meaning she's asleep." She told them.

"So if Yumi's in danger then how do we find her?" Ulrich asked. Aelita smiled. Of course Ulrich would be the first one to ask that. Always wanting to rush to get Yumi out of harms way. She couldn't blame him. She'd do the same for Odd. Aelita started typing at the computer again.

"Yumi's communications are still up giving us a perfect way to track her." She said as a map of the city appeared on the computer screen. A red dot appeared on the northwest section of it with Yumi's name and picture next to it. With the press of a button the map zoomed in on the area highlighting the schematics of the surrounding building and landscape. "It looks like she's at…. the construction site?" Aelita said. "And according to these coordinates she's underground."

"What?" Ulrich said, "But there isn't anything underneath that site. None of the sewer tunnels lead under there."

"I'll see if I can bring up subsurface on the area." Aelita said.

"How can you do that? In fact how are you even showing us satellite views of the construction site?" Odd asked. Aelita looked at him sheepishly.

"I…may have….possibly….hacked into a government satellite." She said.

They all stared at her with surprised looks.

"What? This is important." She said in defense.

"We know." They all said.

"Ok." Said Ulrich. "We know where she is, but how do we get her out?"

"Bet anything Xana is behind this, and if Xana is involved then we can't just go in guns blazing. We need a plan." Odd said.

Everyone looked at him shocked.

"What?" he asked.

"You're never the one to say we need a plan." William said. Odd just stared at him with a frown. "I mean it's just not like you to suggest a plan."

"So." Odd said. "We need one."

"Ok. Then what IS the plan?" Ulrich asked looking at Aelita. "By the way where's Jeremy?" Aelita looked down at her feet.

"He's not helping anymore." She said.

"What!?" William yelled.

"We told him about me and Odd." Aelita continued. William's shock subsided when she said that.

"Oh." He said.

Everybody got quiet after that. Jeremy was the reason they all met and joined the team. They'd all miss him. After a few seconds Ulrich looked up.

"I've got a plan."

Yumi's POV

Her head ached. Everything was blurry. And her breath was labored. She tried to move, but found she was chained to a chair with her hands behind the back of it. Her feet were chained to the legs. She took a few deep breaths, and then moved her head up to look around. She blinked a few times until her vision cleared. She was sitting in a square room about ten feet across with one window to her right, and was barren except for the chair she was in. She looked down at her bonds finding them heavy chain links that were rusted and old. A few of the chain links were also bent of slightly broken on one side. She could definitely brake free. But it could take a while. Looking to her right she realized there was actually a small table against the wall. On it was her watch, cell phone, and hair pin she always carried. She didn't actually wear it, but they were useful in so many ways. Picking a door lock for one. She looked over at the door. It was solid steel with a normal lock. She tested the strength of the chains, and felt them give way slightly. She heard a chuckle of amusement behind her. Turning her head to look behind her see could barely see a man hidden in the back of the room. He walked forward in front of her now.

"Hello Yumi." He said. She looked him in the eye not surprised in the slightest to see the eye of Xana in it.

"Xana." She said. His gaze bore into her. "Where am I? What is this place?" The only response she got was a wolfish smile. She stared at him in hatred.

"You've gotten yourself in a lot of trouble Yumi. You discovered that the workers on the surface were under my control, and I couldn't have you go and tell you're friends. You'd come back to investigate. Can't have that." Xana said moving towards the window looking out of it. "Now I just have to figure out what to do with you." He kept facing away from her, so she tried the chains again. She felt a small amount of chain move. It made a clanking sound, but Xana seemed not to notice it. She froze when he continued speaking. "And as for where you are…well, take a look he said dragging her chair over to the window. It had bars on it of course, but she didn't know why. Once Yumi took one look out of it into the room next to them she didn't intend to use that exit at all. In fact she'd rather stay with Xana then jump out that window. Because outside the window was a massive room hundreds of feet long and wide. And inside of it was hundreds upon hundreds of crabs, bloks, hornets, tarantulas, and kankrelots. It would be impossible to count them all. They were lined up in rows of at least a hundred and stretched all the way back until they fell from sight into the darkness of the room.

Xana chuckled at her reaction. "Not what you expected was it?" he said dragging her back to the center of the room. He then turned to face away from her towards the window again. She pulled on the chain again. It gave way a little more, but still not enough. "And I believe you still had one more question he said turning back to her. What is this place? Well you saw my creatures out the window, you tell me." He said looking at her waiting for her response. She thought about it. For years Xana had been trying to either destroy or take over the world. He now had an army to do so, and her friends had no idea it existed.

"It's a facility used to bring your monsters to earth. The building you're constructing on the surface is just a diversion. You're going to invade our world and either destroy it or control it." She said looking up at him. He clapped his hands loudly.

"Good job Yumi. Good job indeed. You have almost everything correct." He said walking to the window again. He did that a lot. She looked over at the table where her watch sat. With a start she realized the communications were still online. Her friends had heard the entire conversation. She smiled.

"What exactly did I get wrong?" she said playing along. All she had to do was wait until her friends got her. Xana then walked over to the table picking up her watch. He stood in front of her smiling smugly at her as he held the watch. And then he turned of the communications. Strange. He didn't seem angry that her friends had heard their conversation. He just kept smiling at her expectantly. The smile died from her face, and her eyes widened in horror. That's what she had gotten wrong. "You knew. You knew they could hear you. And now their on their way hear with no idea you have an army waiting for them." She said as Xana dropped her watch on the ground as if it was nothing but trash. He kept smiling waiting for her to continue. "They'll come to find me following the signal my watch gives out straight to this place and then you'll kill them. It was all a trap." She finished looking up at him with wide eyes. He did nothing but turn back to the window ignoring her.


	9. Chapter 9: Underground Part 2

Aelita's POV

Their plan was simple. They'd sneak into the base, and gain entry to the underground facility. They'd follow the watches signal through the maze of tunnels until they found Yumi, and then they'd stop whatever operation Xana had going there. They were currently crouched about a hundred yards away from the construction zone in an alley looking around the corner analyzing the situation.

"Well. Lets do this." Odd said eager as ever. Aelita smiled. Leave it to Odd to through caution to the wind.

"Lets just watch for a few seconds." Aeltia said. "We don't have any idea what we're getting into." After a few minutes of watching the deserted construction yard for any movement she signaled for everyone to move forward. William used his supersmoke to ghost ahead of them, and they watched the trail of that was his body at the moment move through the air like a mist. Aeltia had to admit that power was useful at times like this. They snuck forward until they were at the entrance to the yard. William went on in still in his smoke form to check if the coast was clear. When he signaled it was they ran inside and slowly started to look around. The entrance to the base would be inside of the building they were constructing, and they had about thirty meters to cover without being seen. They walked forward while crouching up to the entrance to the building. It was a circular skyscraper. They only had the first few floors built, but the scaffolding went up at least twenty floors, and that wasn't even half the building if the plans she had read were correct.

Aelita stepped through the double doors of the building and was met face to face with a construction worker, but before the man could react William's smoke form collided with the mans body blinding him and knocking him down. Quickly she dashed forward and kicked the man in the back of the head knocking him out.

And although they hadn't made much noise their scuffle didn't go unnoticed, as the alarm sounded. Within seconds the lobby that they had entered was flooded with about a hundred construction workers. They stood there surrounding them. Then The group froze. Yumi had started talking on the com system. They listened to her words as she talked to a man they assumed was Xana. And their faces all paled when they realized what this place really was. And then the com turned off. The construction workers had stood there letting them listen too Yumi talk, but when the com turned off they surrounded them in seconds. There was no way they could escape. They were outnumbered, and the bulk of the workers were surrounding them. Didn't look good. Everything was going according to plan.

Ulrich's POV

The plan was simple. Aelita, Odd, and William would break into the building drawing everyone's attention; while he snuck in through the side, and find Yumi. He waited a few minutes for Aeltia, Odd, and William to move in like they said they would, and then he turned on his visor; his world turning a shade of red as it allowed him to see the pipes underground. He could see the under ground facility through the ground along with all the monsters Xana had waiting for him. He saw a vertical pipe in the ground a few meters away leading down the facility. The facility was certainly massive, as he was at least a hundred-fifty yards form the construction zone. He stepped forward until he was above the grate that was at the top of the pipe. He reached his hand to feel above the grate. His hand was met by steam. It was an exhaust pipe. He pulled one of his swords form his back, and with a few quick slashes he pulled the grate up and out of leaving a square in the old circular grate. He put the sword back, and stood at the edge of the grate. He hoped his Lyoko form would protect him from the heat. Otherwise this is going to be hot. And with that he jumped down the pipe. His Lyoko form protected him, but it didn't stop him from sweating profusely as he fell at least fifty feet. As he neared the bottom he spread his and arms out to the sides of the pipe he slide for another few feet before he stopped at the bottom. He looked down finding that the pipe he was in was actually the chimney of a furnace. He was stuck at the bottom of the pipe with a massive and burning fire underneath him that would certainly mean death if he fell. Quickly dropping his hands leaving only his feet keeping him up he pulled out his swords and cut out a triangle in the front of the pipe. Quickly pulling himself through it he found himself in a boiler room that most likely help power the facility. He looked back at the hole in the pipe where smoke had started escaping. Engineers would be there in a few minutes to deal with the problem. He had to leave quickly. He ran over to a door looking through the wall with his visor. He wouldn't see Yumi since she obviously wouldn't have her watch on, but he could see all of Xana's creatures. At that moment the alarm sounded throughout the complex signaling the start of his friends diversion. He watched through the wall as a couple hundred workers ran passed him through the hall way. After they had gone he opened the door slipping into the hall way. He pulled out his miniature radar Jeremy had programmed. Aeltia had downloaded a schematic of the complex into all of them. He pressed a button on the side of the radar and a 3D holographic projection of the maze of tunnels appeared above the radar in his hand. There was a red dot on one side of it. That was his destination. That was were Yumi was. According to the hologram he had to make his way across the complex, down a set of stair, through a few more hallways, and across a massive room until he would reach Yumi all the while avoiding the guards and monsters. He had a long way to go.

Yumi's POV

She had been trying to figure out a way out of this mess. She had to warn her friends about the trap, but first she had to escape herself. She thought over and over trying to find a way out of the room, but as long as Xana was there she wouldn't be able to escape, and if she did it wouldn't matter. She'd have to cross the room full of monsters, and she didn't like that idea. Her gaze fell on the watch that had been discarded on the floor. Xana was still facing the window. She pulled on the chains and they gave way slightly. She looked at the link that was bending. It was almost broke. All she had to do was pull a little more, and…. "Yes." She thought as the chain broke and she was free. She dashed forward grabbing the watch. She didn't have a chance of fighting her way out of here, but she could give her friends a chance. She stepped towards the wall, and smashed the watch on it twice. Looking down at the watch she was satisfied to see three large cracks on the screen and a few broken buttons. She turned to Xana expecting him to be angry, but he just stood there with a smile on his face. She didn't like the look of it.

"Your plan failed Xana. My friends can't trace the watches signal if it's broke. The aren't coming, so you can just kill me." She said hoping to goad him into a mistake.

"Poor, poor Yumi. So naïve, so predictable." He said. Her face fell. She realized she had just done what he had wanted again. He walked forward. "I read everyone Yumi. I can predict what people will do exactly how they will do it. I knew you'd destroy the watch just like I knew you'd bring your friends here by opening your communications." He said. Yumi's heart stopped at his next words. "You say my plan failed, yet you do not know that your friends are already hear." He said motioning towards the wall were a section of the wall moved to reveal a tv screen. Her eye's widened as her friends appeared on the screen fighting off several hundred workers, and losing. She continued watching as Xana spoke again. "You lead your friends to this trap, and destroyed their only hope of finding you. If they manage to survive the trap they'll wonder the hallways of my complex trying to find you, and they'll make easy prey for my minions." Yumi's horror was mounting by the second, and then all at once it was gone. She smiled. She had noticed something that Xana didn't. He continued talking not noticing her smile.

"Thanks to you Yumi I am going to kill your friends and then enslave your kind. So thank you." He said. Then he frowned as he notice her smile. "Something funny?"

She looked at him her smile widening.

"Where's Ulrich?" she said catching him off guard. He looked at the screen noticing for the first time Ulrich wasn't there. She walked up in front of him. "You say you can read people like a book. You can predict what people will do to the letter, but you never could do that with Ulrich could you." She said. His eyebrow twitched. Finally she had struck a nerve. And she planed on striking a bit more.

"What do you mean?" he asked twitching again.

"The clone from your last attack; it was nothing like Ulrich. It didn't even know that I was the one that said we could only be friends. That's how I knew it was you." She told him. "You can't predict Ulrich or mimic him." He twitched again. She was beginning to enjoy this.

"No. You're wrong." He said, but she continued on."

"You might be able to predict his pouting, his anger, or even sadness, but you can't predict his reactions to things like this, can you." She said. Xana kept twitching every time she jabbed at him. It probably wasn't a good idea to make him angry in this position, but an angry Xana would help Ulrich in the long run. And Ulrich would need it.

"I think that you can read everyone but Ulrich, and THAT scares you. You can't stand the idea of someone you can't predict. Someone who can surprise you. And that's why Ulrich's going to beat you." She finished with a smirk. Xana glared at her. She made him angry, and she was probably going to die now. But at least Ulrich would stop Xana anyway. And then to her surprise Xana just walked around her facing away from her. He didn't do anything. Why would he not just kill her. It'd be easy for him without her watch. And then she found out why. He suddenly turned stepping toward her, and jabbed a syringe into her neck injecting her with whatever was inside. Within seconds her world was nothing but a blurry haze, and her head a drum beat of pounding. She fell to her knees suddenly finding them weak. Whatever Xana injected her with made it to where she couldn't see or walk easily. Next thing she knew she saw the blurred shape of Xana leave the room with her still sitting on the floor dazed.

Aeltia's POV

The plan had been working so far. Sneak in and get caught. Keep as much attention on them as possible until Ulrich got to Yumi. The only problem with that was that in order to prolong the fight they had to fight without weapons, as their normal weapons would render the possessed workers unconscious. It wouldn't harm the people as their weapons were digital. Only Xana or anything virtual or digital could be hurt by them. Otherwise the weapons would just pass through the person. And without their weapons in the fight it was a struggle to survive. More and more workers kept poring in.

They had been fighting for at lest thirty minutes now, and to be honest Aeltia was starting to get tired. If this kept up she'd exhaust herself. She looked at the levels of energy displayed on her watch. It read at 50%. Once it reached 0 her watch would run out of power and shut down. Ulrich needed to hurry, or that would be very soon. They fought for about ten more minutes, and then as if by some miracle all power in the building shut off along with the lights. Thinking quickly for their own survival they ran. Odd used his climbing gear to jump up onto the wall climbing into a vent. William turned into his smoke form and followed him through. And deciding to test out her knew upgrade she waved her hand over her watch and turned invisible. She then activated her wings flying over to the others entering the vent, so that Odd could put the grate back. As soon as she was inside she deactivated the invisibility looking down at her energy levels. She made a mental note to only use the invisibility in emergencies, as her levels were now at 30%. She looked at the others. William was now in human form sitting against the wall next to Odd. They both looked as out of breath as she was. Looking down at her watch again she activated her communications with Jeremy.

"Jeremy. Jeremy I know you're listening." She said. "We're at the new construction sight down town. We found out it's just one of Xana's cover-ups for a facility to bring monsters from Lyoko to Earth. I know you're mad at me and Odd, but Yumi's been captured by Xana and we need you're help to save her. Without someone to help us I think we're going to die here. So please, you may still be angry at me, but don't cause the death of Ulrich, William, and Yumi because of it." And then she shut off communications.

She took a peek out of the window. With the lights out she still couldn't see anything, but that meant the workers couldn't either. Still it wouldn't take long for them to find them. She just hoped Ulrich would find Yumi soon.

Ulrich's POV

Things had been going well. He hadn't been spotted by any monsters yet, and was almost at the stairs leading down to the floor Yumi was in. He said had been going well because after a few minutes of ghosting through the hallways dodging monsters Yumi's signal on her watch disappeared, as if her watch broke. He still remembered which room she was in, but if she moved or managed to escape he'd never be able to find her without the tracker. And his watch was only on 40% power. He needed something to even the playing field before his watch lost all power. He spotted a door a few feet in front of him. He slipped through it finding it empty. He also saw a bunch of wires, electric cables, and fuse boxes inside. He smiled; just what he needed. He stepped forward to a large lever that was marked main power, and switched it off. Everything went dark. He activated his visor, and he could see again. The monsters in the neighboring hallways and rooms kept stumbling around confused, unable to see. He smiled. This was going to be easy now. Without the light to reveal him he could walk right by a monster without being detected, and so he set out as fast as he could without making any noise towards the stairs. He slipped passed a few tarantulas until he finally reached the stairs and slipped down to the floor below him. Now he figured he had about a hundred meters of hallways and rooms to go through before he reached the large room on the hologram he had.

He had no idea what he would find in the room, as Xana had somehow found a way of making it to where he couldn't see through it's walls with his visor. He slipped down the corridor and down the hallway. He made the first turn and continued down another hallway. He made about three more turns until he was met with an open door way leading into the large open room. Ulrich stepped through it, and his heart literally stopped. Right in front of him was hundreds upon hundreds of monsters. There were crabs, bloks, hornets, kankrelots, and tarantulas. He was really glad he'd turned the lights off when he did. Because if he hadn't he'd have been spotted by the monsters who were facing him standing in rows of a hundred. He looked to his right along the wall next to him. That was the room Yumi was in. All he had to do was cross right in front of the monsters in the dark. And if they saw him he'd be incinerated by lasers. He slowly slunk forward barely daring to breath as he ghosted across the room. He was half way to the door when it was as if fate decided to ruin his day. The lights suddenly turned on. He dove forward acting on instinct as a barrage of lasers scorched the ground where he had been. Activating his supersprint he dashed forward in a flash through the door where he assumed Yumi was, and slamming it shut behind him bolting it shut with him inside.

Then he put his back to the door sliding down it letting out a sigh of relief. As soon as he hit the floor though his watch flashed red showing a 0 on the screen. His Lyoko form faded away leaving him human again. After a moment he heard a body move on the floor in front of him. His head snapped up honing in on the body of Yumi laying on the floor in front of him.

"Yumi!" he said bolting up from the floor to dash over to her. She looked up at him as she heard her name.

"Ulrich? Is that you?" she said looking around as if she couldn't see him. "Xana drugged me with something. I can't move or see right now." She explained to him. He kneeled down next to her pulling her into a tight embrace which she returned now knowing it was him. Their hug was cut short as they both jumped in surprise as laser after laser beat against the door. A small crack appeared in it. He could tell Yumi knew what the sound was because she huddled closer to him he head pushing into his chest. He quickly gave Aelita and the others the signal that he found Yumi through the watches.

"Ulrich." Yumi said in a small voice. He put a hand on her head pulling her to him.

"Shhh. It's going to be ok." He said knowing full well it probably wasn't. This could be it.

Jeremy's POV

Jeremy had been sitting in his room staring down at the watch he had made for himself. He kept going over his fight with Aeltia in his head regretting every minute of it. He realized now that if Aeltia wanted to go out with Odd instead of him it was her choice. Oh how he wished he could rewind time to before he stormed out. He even considered using the return to the past to do it, but Aelita wouldn't be effected by it so it wouldn't matter. He just sat there staring at the watch. He's ruined the one major group friendship he'd ever had, and Aelita probably hated him now. He kept wishing there was a way to reverse everything he did for about another hour before the watch beeped in his hand. It was Aelita.

"Jeremy. Jeremy I know you're listening." She said. "We're at the new construction sight down town. We found out it's just one of Xana's cover-ups for a facility to bring monsters from Lyoko to Earth. I know you're mad at me and Odd, but Yumi's been captured by Xana and we need you're help to save her. Without someone to help us I think we're going to die here. So please, you may still be angry at me, but don't cause the death of Ulrich, William, and Yumi because of it." And then the communications ended leaving him to his thoughts. He went over what she had said to him. And then he put the watch on feeling it meld with his skin. He had been wishing for a way to fix everything, and now he could.

Aeltia's POV

They sat in the dark for about ten minutes when the lights suddenly blinked on. They waited for three more minutes not daring to move, and then several hands shot through the vents walls and pulled all three of them through it. She struggled to get out of the workers hold along with the others, but she couldn't escape. Eventually they stopped struggling and just looked at the workers around them. One of the workers raised his hands towards them, probably to electrocute them, but before he could they all heard Ulrich over the com system. He signaled that he had found Yumi, and that they could stop the act. She smiled. They stood there for about five seconds, and then Odd all of a sudden raised his hands and shot three laser arrows, one hit the worker about to electrocute them, and the others hit two other workers. William pulled out of the workers grip spinning his sword appeared in his hands, and Aelita dropped to her knees as the sword whistled above her head passing through a large group of workers. The workers themselves were unhurt, but the possessive mist controlling them was destroyed. Aeltia rose to her feet and began to fight using her weapons like the others. They started to get the upper hand for a few minutes, and then the workers surprise started to subside and they were backed against a wall all over again.

Aelita remembered that she had saw that her upgrade allowed her to create larger energy fields than normal. She looked at her watch seeing that it had ten percent of power left. She dropped her Lyoko form rerouting all of the remaining power to her energy fields. Their backs were against the wall, and so she stepped forward her hands shooting out causing a massive energy ball to form around them and join with the wall creating a force field pushing back any workers that hit it with them inside. She kept her eyes on her watch as it dropped down to 8%.

"This field won't hold for much longer." She told the others. At that point one of the workers stepped forward raising his hands. A stream of electricity hit the barrier, and her watch dropped down to 7%. A few more seconds and it was 5%. The worker hit it with another blast dropping her power down to 4%.

"I'm on four percent power guys. If any of you have an idea's then you're welcome to try them." She said looking at the others. Then it seemed the worker was growing impatient as he started shooting a continuous blast of electricity at the barrier. It shrunk down until Aeltia's hands were almost touching it, and Aeltia saw her watch drop to 1%. It didn't have the power to take a continuous blast of electricity, and would shut down any second. Suddenly out of nowhere a great blue flash of light started to grow brighter and brighter by the second right behind the workers. Aelita didn't have time to wonder what it was as the barrier was about to fade, and from the blue light emitted a wave pulse of blue electricity shooting out in every direction. Aeltia saw her watch hit zero and the barrier faded. The wave of electricity passed through all the workers and them. Odd and Williams' watches stopped working as soon as it hit them, and the workers just seemed to pass out. It had to be an EMP, an Electro Magnetic Pulse. It was the only thing that could un-possess all of the workers and shut down their watches. Aelita looked over to where the blue light had came from, and saw Jeremy standing there in his Lyoko form his hands still glowing slightly blue from the electricity he just shot out. He rushed over to them hoping they were ok.

"You guys ok?" he said. Odd and William looked up at him.

"If you had shown up a few seconds later I'm pretty sure we'd be dead." William told him. Odd just grunted and said,

"Thanks Einstein." And then he collapsed on the floor out of breath. She looked over at him.

"Thanks for coming Jeremy. It wouldn't be the same without you." She told him. He just smiled at her. She wondered if he'd gotten over the fact that she loved Odd yet, but before anyone else could say anything they were all blinded by a white flash of light behind them. When it had died down they all looked towards it, and Odd literally leaped to his feet despite how tired he was. William and Jeremy just stood there. She couldn't even form an actual sentence she was so confused by what she saw. Standing in the place of where the light came from was Aelita.

But at the same time it wasn't. This Aeltia was older and looked different. She had light purple-pink arm sleeves that went all the way up her arm from her hand with open fingers to the just above her elbow. Her shoulders were covered in light bluish clear shoulder spikes, along with a light blue chest peace over her chest with the sides of her waist visible. The front of her stomach was covered in a pink skin tight clothing that attached to the pink skin tight pants. From her knees down on the outside of her legs was light blue and purple armor on her legs. And around her waist was a light blue clear dress like skirt that was open in the front and came to a point in the back. Her hair was also different as instead of the normal hairstyle she used her pink hair was in two ponytails that reached down to almost the middle of her back, but the most striking thing about her was her wings. They now looked more like angel wings and glowed neon pink.

They all just stared at the second Aeltia that had appeared out of thin air, and then she spoke.

"Hi. You've probably already figured out I'm Aeltia, and are massively confused so I'll just cut to the chase. I'm Aelita from ten years in the future, and I need your help." Said Aelita's older self. They all just stared at her in shock processing what she had said. And then Aelita was finally able to speak.

"What do you need?" she said. Her older self just looked at her and said.

"I can't explain right now I just need you to come with me." She said holding out her hands.

"What about Ulrich and Yumi. They're here too." Odd said.

"We've already taken care of that. Now take me hands." Aeltia's older self said.

"We?" Jeremy asked. Aeltia's older self just stomped her foot saying,

"I'll explain everything later, but right now you just need to take me hands. Eventually they all stepped forward putting their hands on top of hers. Their hands glowed, and they disappeared in a flash of light.

Ulrich's POV

The door wasn't going to last much longer under the rain of lasers from the monsters outside. Soon enough it would break and they'd be swarmed by tons of monsters. Yumi huddled closer to him hugging him tight, and he just held onto her shutting his eyes. Through his eyelids he could see the white hot flash of light that appeared beside him, but he didn't dare open his eyes. He felt a presence beside him, and he opened one eye. And was surprised to see a gloved hand in front of his face. He looked up to see to his immense surprise that it belonged to him.

"Take my hand." Ulrich's older self said. Ulrich was about to ask a question when a large crack appeared on the door, and decided it could wait. He took his hand just as the door shattered, and they vanished in a bright white light.

The first thing Ulrich noticed was that they were no longer in the facility, but were no next to all of his friends including Jeremy. They all looked at him in surprise as they appeared, and as Ulrich looked around further he realized that they were inside a ruined destroyed building. And he realized with a start that it was Kadic Academy. His older self walked forward and said,

"Welcome to the future." And they all looked around in horror at the destroyed city they used to live in, wondering what they had gotten into.


	10. Chapter 10: When? Part One

Ulrich's POV

He looked around at the rubble and ash that used to be his home. How could this had happened? It looked as if a nuke had hit, and Ulrich wondered if that was what had happened. Then his mind went to the person in front of him. Himself actually, but he looked older. He was in his Lyoko clothes, but he looked different. He was taller, and his hair fell down in front of his eyes. His clothes were the same, mostly. His boots, gloves, and shoulder pads had fin like extentions on them.(think of the spikes on batman's gauntlets but instead of three spikes it's just one fin shaped spike running up his arms and the side of his boots) Around his head was a yellow headband with a silver wolfhead on the front. The most interesting thing that was different about him was the giant sword on his back. It was a few feet shorter than Williams and was straight instead of curved. It was a double sided black blade. The handle was twohanded and wrapped in black cord. Above the handle were two small curved blades that came out on each side and formed a crosspiece. At the base of the blade was another silver wolfhead.

He was brought out of his train of thought as everyone started walking out of the destroyed building they were in. He noted that they were headed towards the woods. Probably to the old sewer hatch they used to get to the factory. As everyone fell in behind his older self and older Aelita he stepped beside Yumi in the back.

"You ok?" he asked her.

"I'm fine." she said. "Hopefully Xana's drug will wear off completely soon, but for now I can walk on my own." No sooner had she said those words did her legs give out beneath her. She stumbled to her knees using her hands to stop her fall. Ulrich was immediately down by her side on one knee.

"I guess the drug hasn't worn off as much as you thought." he said with a smile. She looked up at him and smiled in return. She blushed as he slipped his arms under her knees and neck picking her up bridal style. A giggle escaped her lips as she laced her fingers behind his neck. She leaned her head onto his shoulder; closing her eyes she whispered,

"I love you Ulrich." Ulrich just held her tighter placing a light kiss on her forehead. She just snuggled into his chest even more. Ulrich started walking again catching up with the others who had reached the sewer hatch as he had predicted. It took some effort, but he eventually was able to lower her and himself down into the sewer along with the others.

Aelita's POV

It was around then that Aelita was tired of waiting. Aelita walked up in front of her and his older self stopping them from continuing.

"Ok. We've been patient with you both about all this, but now we want answers. What happened to the city? Why are we here? Where are we going?" she asked them. They just looked at her. Then Aelita's older self spoke.

"Aelita. I know you all have plenty of questions right now and we'll explain everything soon, but first we have to get somewhere safe." old Aelita said. But Aelita wasn't going to give up that easily.

"Safe from who? Xana?" she asked. Old Ulrich stepped forward to look at Aelita.

"Safe from HIM." he said.

"Who's HIM?" Aelita asked.

"HE is the one who destroyed the city. He is the one who we have been fighting for over seven years. HE is the one who we cannot beat without your help. That's why you're here. Because we need your help to stop him. And as for where we're going; we're headed to the factory, or at least what is left of it. Any other questions will have to wait until we're all safe. HE would have sensed us traveling through time, and sent his minions to kill us, so lets move shall we." Old Ulrich said pushing past her. Aelita was taken aback by the tone in Ulrich's voice. Normally Ulrich's voice was neutral, but his older self seemed to be filled with rage, and she wondered what had happened to make him like that. Judging from what they saw of the city back on the surface she could take a guess. Xana must have done a lot. They all started walking down the tunnel again following Old Ulrich. Aelita wasn't the only one that was shocked with how Ulrich had behaved. Everyone was. Especially Ulrich and Yumi. Yumi loved Ulrich, and she had always known him to be gentle and kind with the others. But Ulrich was the most shocked. HE knew himself better than anyone, but he just couldn't see how he had changed so much. Even with all that had happened to the city he couldn't figure out why.

They reached the sewer hatch that opened up on the bridge that lead to the factory. They climbed up the hatch coming out on the bridge. They took the short walk across the bridge to the edge where it dropped off about thirty feet into the factory. The ropes were gone leaving them no way down without falling. And none of them were to keen on that idea. They were about to ask how they would get down, but before they could they all stared in shock as Sissi flew up from the factory floor hovering in front of them. Sissi's was wearing a green skin tight suit. Her thighs were covered in a light green material her knees along with the outside of her thighs were a darker green, and her feet and shins were light green with purple on the toes and bottom of her feet. At the part where her legs met the waist were two strips of purple. Her chest and waist were covered with light green with her ribs covered in purple. On her chest was a yellow design with a point pointing down, and three more pointing up. Her shoulders were dark green with her forearms light green. Her hands were covered in dark green gloves with open fingers. Her hair was in the same style we always had, but was held in place by a tiara in the same shape of the design on her chest. Green energy emanated from her hands and feet. They all stared in shock as Sissi remained floating in the air looking to each of them in turn.

"So I guess you managed to find them and bring them here." Sissi said. She raised her hands out in front of her glowing green, and a flat green disc that glowed slightly appeared out of thin air. Old Ulrich and Aelita motioned for them to step on it. They hesitantly took a few steps onto the disc. It held there weight, and they didn't fall through like they were afraid they would. They waited for the Old Ulrich to join them, but he just jumped down to the ground landing with a loud thump. They all looked in awe as he wasn't even fazed by the drop and started walking towards the elevator. Sissi flew down and landed on the ground following him with the disc they were on followed her. They all stepped into the elevator taking it down to the supercomputer room. As the door opened they all stared in shock of what had become of it as they walked into the room. There were cracks and holes in the walls. Wreckage everywhere scattered on the ground. A few of the supports on the ceiling hung down. the ladder that led to the scanners below was in pieces. But the thing that shocked them the most was the big hulking destroyed mass in the middle of the room that was the supercomputer. It was nothing but a pile of metal and garbage now. They stared at the room that they had all spent so much time in. They had all become friends in this room. It's where their crusade had begun. Where everything started, and looking at the destroyed room they felt a sense of loss.

They were brought out of their thoughts when a figure stepped forward into the light. It was Odd. Odd's outfit was the least different. The inside of his legs was light purple with the outside dark purple. His knee caps her covered in a light purple knee guard. He had a white sash around his waist like a belt. His chest was light purple except for the dark purple on his ribs. He had white shoulder guards. His forearms were covered with light purple, and he had on black metal gloves covering his hands. His knuckles had white circles on them and his fingers were covered in purple with his claws sticking out. His purple tail was waving around behind him, but the biggest difference was his hair. Instead of the usual spiky hairdo he always wore his hair had grown out and down his back reaching his waist. It was styled in a spiky style still, but was still completely different. His cat ears poked out of the top of his hair, and his purple spot of hair was on display in the front.

He walked forward as Old Aelita stepped forward wrapping her arms around Odds neck. When they separated Aelita, Odd, and Sissi walked up in front of them looking at each of them in turn. Ulrich notice that his older self didn't join them, but walked across the room and sat down not looking at them. Then Aelita spoke.

"Ok. We're here now, and you all probably have hundreds of questions, and I promised you answers. So ask away." she said looking at them. They all looked at her waiting. Aelita spoke up.

"Why'd you bring us here? To the future." she asked.

Her older self looked at her and said. "We need your help. You obviously saw the destruction on the surface, and the destroyed factory. The person responsible has been fighting us for seven years, and we can't win without help. HE is too powerful." she answered. Yumi stepped forward.

"Why couldn't you tell us all this earlier? You said we had to get somewhere safe. Safe from what?" she said.

"If we had stayed out in the open to long then HE would come find us. Traveling through time to bring you here would not go unnoticed by HIM. We had to leave before he showed up to kill us." Old Aelita said. And then Jeremy stepped forward to ask the question all of them were afraid to ask.

"Who's HE." Jeremy asked. Old Aelita suddenly had a pained expression on her face, as if an old memory had appeared in her mind and she didn't like it. She seemed to be hiding something. But before she could say anything old Odd stepped forward.

"It isn't Xana if that what you're thinking. We already destroyed Xana years ago, but we didn't see the new threat before it was too late." he said. They all looked at one another.

"So who is it?" Odd asked.

"Omega." Their attention was drawn across the room to old Ulrich who had turned to look at them. He reached into his pocket pulling out the radar disc they used. Dropping it on the ground he kicked it across the floor where it slide to a stop in front of them. A hologram appeared in the air above it. It blinked a few times before it stopped so that they could make out what it was. It seemed to be some kind of security camera in a science lab. They recognized it as one of the labs in the city. It was empty except for a single man. The man held a vile of some kind of liquid. Ulrich's older self continued talking. "He was a scientist. A man who wanted to change the human race for the better. He created a formula. One that would turn people into a kind of superhuman. It would give who ever had it abilities that people shouldn't have." as he said this he raised his hand up and blue fire flared up from his fingers igniting his hand. He closed his hand and the fire disappeared. They all stared in utter shock. They couldn't believe this. Superpowers? And then Ulrich spoke again. "Mocked and slandered for his ideas the scientist became an outcast. Everyone thought he was either stupid or insane." as Ulrich said this their attention was drawn back to the hologram as the scientist began to move. He brought the vile of liquid to his lips and drank it all. "So when he finally finished the serum he tested it on himself. But as he drank it all the hate and anger at the people who had mocked him for his work came to the surface. The serum amplified that hate into something so evil and so putrid that he became a monster. The serum changed his body until he became the very monster he was on the inside." They continued to watch the hologram move. After he drank the serum he suddenly hunched over in pain, one hand landing on the table next to him. The scientist cried out in pain, and groaning, stumbled forward. The lab coat he wore was shredded to pieces as his body and skin began to change. His skin hardened into a scale like plating. His shoulders broadened out and he grew taller. Spikes came out of his shoulders knees and the top of his head. His hair fell from his head. His shoes and clothes were reduced to shreds replaced by scale like armored plating covering his entire body. His arms and legs thickened bulging out into muscle. Claws came out of his fingers, and he was now about nine feet tall. The only thing left of his clothing was his pants. His back was to the camera. They hadn't seen his face yet, and Aelita couldn't shake the feeling that the scientist had been familiar somehow. She wished she had been able to see his face before his body changed. She may have known him. The lights in the lab went out and the scientist rose to his feet towering over everything else. His head turned until you could just see the left side of his face, but without the lights all they saw was his glowing white eyes. Then he spoke.

"I...Am...OMEGA." And as the scientist said it he turned leaping forward onto the wall until his face was right in front of the camera. And in that split second the camera was destroyed.

They all stood there their eyes wide in shock and fear. The hologram ended. No one spoke. Then when they had calmed down old Aelita said. "Omega is to powerful for us alone. We can't beat him without your help." she said the last part a little reluctantly. "Will you help us?"

They all looked at each other. Gradually the fear in their eyes died down to fierce determination. They all nodded to each other, and then to old Aelita. A small smile appeared on her lips. She nodded back.

"Before we tell you anything else though, do any of you have anymore questions?" she asked looking at them. Ulrich stepped forward when he noticed something missing. Old Aelita knew what he was about to ask, but that didn't stop the pain on her face when he did.

"Where's Yumi? And Jeremy and William for that matter." he asked. Aelita's smile dropped from her face. Old Odd and Sissi looked away, and Old Ulrich visibly flinched when he mentioned Yumi's name. Old Aelita looked back up at Ulrich and said,

"Before Omega showed up Jeremy got sick. We took him to the hospital and found out there was something wrong with his heart. He died." she said the last words almost to quiet to hear. Everyone's eyes widened, and they looked at Jeremy. His expression was full of shock. Old Aelita continued. "As for Yumi, well." Old Aelita looked over at Old Ulrich. He looked away. "She left." Everyone shouted, "What?"

"She couldn't stand fighting Omega anymore, and she didn't want to live like this anymore, so one day she just left. We never saw her again." Old Aelita said. Yumi looked over at old Ulrich noticing something she hadn't before. On his finger were two wedding rings. Her eyes widened. Her and Ulrich had been married, and she still left him and the others. She couldn't believe it. No one spoke for some time after that. And then.

"What about William?" Jeremy asked. Old Aelita wouldn't look up. She obviously was still shaken up from everything, so old Odd spoke up.

"He was brainwashed by Omega, and now serves as his right hand man." he said. They all processed the information that they had been given. No one spoke for several minutes, until suddenly the whole room began to shake as if an earthquake had started. It stopped and then began again. This time accompanied by a loud booming sound as if something had slammed into the factory above. Old Odd yelled,

"It's Omega! He must have found out where we went." Old Aelita stumbled forward.

"He'll destroy the entire building if we don't stop him!" she shouted. They all rushed into the elevator, but before Ulrich stepped in he looked back at his older self. He hadn't moved from where he sat.

"Aren't you coming?" he shouted walking back. Yumi shout from the elevator as another tremor started.

"Ulrich get in." But Ulrich just kept looking at his older self. Old Aelita pressed the button as the elevator shook from another tremor.

"No time. We have to get up there before the elevator collapses." she said. The elevator doors closed as Yumi shouted,

"Ulrich!" But the doors closed and the elevator started up. Ulrich looked at his older self again.

"Well. Are you coming or not?" he said.

"No." he said.

"What?" Ulrich said. "Why not?"

"I stopped fighting Omega years ago. There isn't any hope of beating him, and all this brings is death and suffering." he said. Ulrich was speechless. Had Yumi leaving him really cause him to loose all hope. To stop fighting. To give up. His older self just stood up walking across the room placing his hands on a table. Anger flared in Ulrich. He walked forward towards the table.

"You mean to tell me that after everything we went through with Xana. After everything that happened you gave up hope just because Yumi left you." Ulrich said shouting now. He older self didn't look at him.

"You don't understand Ulrich." he said. Ulrich's anger rose at those words.

"I don't." he said. "I'm you. I'm the one person who can understand, the only difference between us right now is that if Yumi left me I'd keep fighting." Ulrich shouted. His older self whipped around getting face to face with Ulrich.

"You want to understand? FINE! Yumi didn't leave, she's dead! Omega Murdered her!" he said. Ulrich froze. He looked at himself in shock.

"But Aelita?" Ulrich said.

"Aelita said what I told her. I didn't want to tell them about it so I said she left." he said turning away. "You understand now? I saw Omega kill the woman I loved. I can hardly go on living let alone fight back." Ulrich's anger faded away replaced by pain. Yumi's dead? Omega killed her. And when that thought came into his mind rage filled his thoughts again. But not at his older self, at Omega. He turned towards his older self.

"You now what? I don't understand." he said causing his older self to look up. "I get that you're sad and hurt about Yumi's death, but I wouldn't stop fighting. I wouldn't give in. I'd try as hard as I could to make Omega pay for what he did. Don't you see? By giving up hope and refusing to fight you're dishonoring Yumi's memory." Ulrich said. His older self didn't turn around or look at him. Ulrich's anger came back. He turned and walked away towards the elevator. Before he entered it he turned to look back. His older self still didn't move.

"I'm going up there to fight. To help the others. And I'm going to do what you can't." Ulrich said. His older self turned to look at him. "I'm going to kill Omega."

As Ulrich stepped out of the elevator he saw everyone fighting hundreds of creatures that slightly resembled Xana's minions. He dashed forward into the fray destroying creature after creature. He fought his way to the others stepping beside Yumi.

"Bout time you showed up." she said. "We're in trouble here. There's to many to fight. We can't beat them all. Ulrich and Yumi then fell into perfect synchronization. If one moved the other moved. If one attacked the other attacked. They moved as one person. Each knowing the others move before it was made. They fought for about ten minutes before things changed. At first it seemed as if Yumi had been wrong, and they would win. But then the creatures suddenly surrounded them cutting them off entirely. Out of the mass of minions came a man like creature covered in scales and spikes. His eyes glowed white and he had on armored plating. Ulrich knew who it was.

"Omega." he said hate in his eyes. This was the man that killed Yumi. the man that would destroy their home. Omega looked from one person to the next until his gaze rested on Ulrich noticing the fury in his eyes.

"So that's what you were doing. You brought your younger selves here." he said. Omega waved his hand at the creatures surrounding them and they all flew out of the factory leaving only Omega and them.

"That's your plan?" he asked them. "You're going to fight me with people weaker than you." A smirk appearing on his face. "Why don't you just face facts already. Ulrich was the only one who even stood a chance against me. He was the one with the same powers as me. The one with all the skills needed to beat me. And I broke his spirit. I made him give up." he said with a smile. Old Aelita stepped forward.

"You didn't break Ulrich's spirit. Yumi did when she left." she told him. He just laughed at her.

"Is that what he told you. That she left him. Oh no Aelita. She didn't leave." he said in a mocking tone. "I killed her." he said. No one moved. Everyone reacted in surprise and shock, save Ulrich. A fact that didn't go unnoticed by Omega. He looked at him raising an eyebrow.

"Not even one reaction, Ulrich? You're not surprised at all? Did you already know, or do you just not care?" he asked. "I'm pretty sure you care so I'm going to say you already knew."

He looked around at each of them. Omega could see the pain and anger on their faces from what they'd heard. He smiled.

"So. Who wants to die first?" He said, his eyes glowing. Seconds passed. And then old Odd started running to the side firing laser arrows the whole time. Young Odd going in the opposite direction doing the same. Sissi's hands lit up with green energy and bolt of energy shot from her hands. Old and young Aelita fired energy fields at Omega. And Jeremy shot a ball of blue electricity at him. But not one hit him. Omega held his arms out and the laser arrows, energy bolts, and energy fields stopped in mid air. Omega smiled. He sent them flying back at their owners hitting both Odds, both Aelita's, and Sissi. A stray laser arrow managed to hit William.

Each of them fell to their knees as pain erupted all over their bodies. Ulrich and Yumi quickly found they were all that was left. Obviously projectiles wouldn't work against him, so they both charged him and went melee. They ended up on either side of him both pushing themselves to their limits as they fought to defeat him. But no matter what they tried they couldn't even touch him. He was to fast. Too powerful. After about five minutes of fighting Omega kicked Ulrich in the chest sending him flying about ten feet. He could barely move. He looked up at Omega. When Yumi saw Ulrich go flying she had leapt onto Omega's back wrapping her arms around his neck in a choke hold. Omega grabbed Yumi by her neck and pulled her off his back. He held her up of the ground, and began to choke her. Yumi tried to call out, but she couldn't. She kicked Omega in the face, but he jus tightened his grip on the throat. She kicked her feet grabbing onto his wrists. His grip was like iron. She couldn't get free. Her eyes began to close, and she was barely moving now.

Ulrich looked up at Omega. He saw him choking Yumi. Saw Yumi beginning to fade. He tried to get up but found he couldn't. He could hardly move. He looked back at Omega. Yumi wasn't moving anymore. The only sign that she was still alive was she gasps. Rage filled Ulrich. Omega had killed Yumi once already. And now he would do it again. No! He wouldn't let that happen. Something changed in Ulrich. He felt stronger, faster, more agile. His senses were heightened. He felt like a wild animal that had just been released into the forest. It was as if he had suddenly turned feral. But Ulrich didn't care. All her knew was that Omega was trying to kill Yumi, and he had to stop him. Ulrich suddenly had the strength to stand, and he rushed at Omega. Omega didn't see him until it was to late. Ulrich's sword slipped between his plated armor and scales and into the flesh below. Omega cried out in pain dropping Yumi. She fell to the ground gasping for air. Everyone stared in utter shock. Ulrich had stabbed him. Not one of them had managed to even touch Omega, and here he was with a sword in his stomach. Omega's shock and surprise turned to rage. He grabbed Ulrich and threw him to the ground. Ulrich couldn't move. It was as if his previous strength had all but vanished. Omega pulled the sword from his stomach holding it in a reverse grip. He stood over Ulrich.

"You...Ignorant...Unworthy...little WHELP!" Omega shouted the last words as he raised the sword intent on killing Ulrich right there. He was about to thrust the sword down when he heard a shout.

"Jeremy!" Everyone turned to see Ulrich's older self standing in front of the elevator, giant sword in hand. "JE-RE-MM-YYY" he shouted rushing forward. But he wasn't looking at Jeremy. He was looking at Omega. Jeremy looked at Omega.

"Why would Ulrich-?" The blood froze in Jeremy's veins. There was only one reason Ulrich would call Omega Jeremy. His heart leapt into his throat as he saw the familiar features on Omega's face underneath his scales.

"That's...Me?" Jeremy said barely containing his horror. Everyone looked at Jeremy as Ulrich and Omega launched themselves at each other.


End file.
